


Election Day

by Stormkpr



Category: X-Men: The Animated Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-20 05:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormkpr/pseuds/Stormkpr
Summary: The future of mutantkind – and the planet – is in serious jeopardy. Magneto has been killed, and Cortez is trying to organize mutants for a full-scale war. Rogue meanwhile is struggling with her feelings for Gambit. There will be 6 chapters plus epilogue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Eight years ago, I wrote an X-men fanfic called “Election Day” and posted it to fanfiction.net. I never felt it was one of my stronger fics, the ending was meh, and I basically just forgot about it. For some reason, I decided to re-read it the other day. Upon the re-read, I thought it deserved a second look. Some of the topics in it are even more relevant today, it got plenty of good reviews on ffnet, and (to my surprise) I just plain enjoyed it this time around. So here it is, shared on the beloved Ao3. 
> 
> Warning: Most of the main characters will display homophobic attitudes throughout the story.
> 
> A few more quick things:
> 
> \- Like all my X-men fanfic, this one is generally based on the characters as they appear in "X-men: The Animated Series". 
> 
> \- It is narrated by Rogue and takes place not long after the events in XTAS.
> 
> \- Thank you to Jo the Phoenix for beta testing.

**ELECTION DAY**

I decided one day that I'm gonna write about it. My life as an X-man has had so much happen that I wanna take all the notes I wrote over the years and get them organized. I thought for a while about where to start and decided to begin with when we left the mansion.

I could've started anywhere, but a lot of this you know already. You saw a glimpse of my creepy father, you saw me kiss Cory and put the boy in a coma, you saw Mystique corrupt me until Xavier found me, and you saw all the adventures that the X-men had over the years from the first Sentinel attack to Apocalypse's crazy plan to end time. And you saw everything me and Remy went through.

But I think I'm gonna start with what happened after all that.

The Professor suggested it to me, not long after I joined the X-men. He said that writing about things helps, and he was right like he always is. I always had a whip-smart memory anyhow. When I sat down to write what had happened the day before, I could remember whole conversations without even trying. That shouldn't surprise you. You already know I could tell you everything that happened the day that Cory I and kissed, and that was practically a lifetime ago.

Years have passed since what I'm gonna write about, but I still have the notes I wrote when I we were all in the eye of the storm. Reading through and organizing them has taken me right back to that crazy time.

***

The first thing I remember is how darn strange it was to not be living in the mansion anymore.

Oh yeah, its proper name was the Institute but none of us called it that. All the years that the core group of us lived and worked together – me, Remy, the Professor, Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Beast, Jubilee, and Iceman - we called it the mansion.

But now there were a whole passel of other X-men living on board Asteroid M, along with most every other mutant on the planet too.

And as incredible as that was, my notes from those days have as much to say about what was going on between me and Remy as they do with what the monumental events that all of mutantkind was experiencing.

I'd better back up and explain things. Too much happened at once, but I gotta slow down and do it all justice. It's hard to figure exactly where to start but I think that Magneto's memorial is as good a place as any.

***

We'd gotten the word out that there was going to be a memorial for Magneto at the mansion, but apart from the X-men not too many other folks attended. A handful of Morlocks and X-Factor people, but that was it.

Not that the room wasn't full enough with just the X-men. For years it had been the nine of us. Bobby was always there too but in the background; the boy wasn't a fighter. But given what was going on in the world outside us, most everyone who'd been with us at one point had come back and officially joined up with us. Angel had returned first, then Nightcrawler joined, then Colossus, and then Cannonball. Moira and Banshee moved their research facility here after Moira's son was killed. Dazzler tracked us down and joined up with us, and Angel brought Psylocke in. For so many years it had been just the smaller group, so it took some getting used to with all these others sitting around the table.

There was no mistaking that Magneto was really and truly dead and gone forever because this time there was a body. The Professor was shaken. He hid it but we knew him well. I'm not sure if he was more shaken because Magneto was gone or because of what this meant. FOH was claiming responsibility for killing Magneto, and we knew those bastards were more powerful than ever, but even that was the least of our worries. The Professor had predicted that making Magneto into a martyr might accomplish what Magneto had never been able to do in his lifetime: a war between mutants and normal humans. Magneto wasn't cold in his grave before various mutants and mutant groups were beating the drum for war. We didn't have that much time to mourn him, and my stomach churned like I'd eaten bad food when I thought about what this might mean.

But yeah, despite all this weighty stuff going on, most of my thoughts still belonged to what was going on with me and Remy. I didn't want to admit it, least of all to myself, but he was what I thought of most of the time.

There was a buzz in the air during the memorial – I'm sure because of rumors of war and us wondering what role we'd play and how we'd get it to a peaceful solution. Gambit held my gloved hand during the service, which was doing as much to cause butterflies in my stomach as all the talk of war was. We sat quietly during the service and listened to the Professor talk, though every time I glanced around the room I could tell that my friends – hell, the X-men are my family – were preoccupied. Magneto hadn't meant to any of us what he'd meant to the Professor. I looked at the front of the room again and remembered seeing lines on the Professor's face that hadn't been there before and a look in his eyes that worried me.

When the service was over, the Professor left the room. Moira followed his hoverchair, and I saw Cyclops and Storm filter out of the room next.

Dazzler walked by the seats where me and Remy were sitting and she flashed him a killer smile. He smiled back.

"You wanna go get some coffee, chere?" he asked me.

I gotta say that somehow that Swamp Rat always knew what I needed. Right then, I needed to get away from the crowd of people in the mansion, away from thoughts about what Magneto's death was gonna mean, and away from Dazzler smiling at the man who I wanted to say was "my man" but really couldn't.

We drove to the nearest coffee shop in silence and sat down to our drinks. And again that man had talent because he kept me from thinking about what I didn't want to think about. We talked about a movie we saw on TV the day before, then somehow got to talking about what one of the X-Factor people had been wearing at the memorial. I mentioned I liked our drinks and Remy said it was time to upgrade the coffee grinder at the mansion. He talked about some ideas for making the drinks even better.

We'd both noticed out of the corners of our eyes a few people in the coffee shop taking second and third glances at us. Other than my skunk-stripe I look normal enough, but then there's Gambit's eyes. Me, I always found his eyes breathtaking and could lose myself in 'em for hours, but I had to remind myself that to a lot of non-mutants they looked freakish. He wore sunglasses sometimes when out in public like this, but I remember well how God-awful cloudy and gloomy that day was; can't blame the man for not wanting to wear sunglasses. So guess we couldn't be too surprised that some people took notice.

"Look. A pair of muties sitting right over there!"

"Ew, you're right! Look at that guy's eyes!"

I remember feeling kinda sorry for them. Gambit could've pulverized them in two seconds if he hadn't been such the gentleman. Instead he handled the situation with what I gotta call style.

"I believe it's time for us to leave, chere," he said, setting his mug down and offering me his arm.

Since, as usual, I had clothing covering every inch of flesh, I took his arm and we calmly left the place ignoring the taunts from the sad folks who were making fun of us. When we got back to the mansion, Remy walked me to my room and kissed my hands. I don't gotta write that I still had my gloves on.

***

I didn't sleep at all that night. A lot of the X-Factor people had stayed overnight in the mansion, and I still felt something in the air. I wasn't close to Magneto like the Professor was but I felt the same thing that I knew the Professor felt. An all-out war was going to be on us if we didn't act fast. Me, I don't back down from a battle when I gotta fight, but a full-scale war would mean the death of a lot of innocent folks and we X-men never can abide that notion.

But again, that was only half of what was bothering me. I didn't want to end last evening with Remy kissing my gloves outside of my room. I wanted to end it with me curled up next to him, our clothes on the floor. And hey, while I was dreaming - how about adding in the notion of one my gloved fingers having an engagement ring on it? Didn't matter that I'd had years to accept this; I still couldn't go on with Remy like this anymore. The idea of a war about to break should've bothered me more but it didn't.

So I threw on a bathrobe, dug around for my slippers, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I'd had a late lunch before the memorial and had skipped dinner since the decaf latte I drank with Remy had filled me up, but now I was hungry again. When I reached the kitchen, Storm was there.

I said hello to her and started to rummage through the refrigerator. Storm sat quietly drinking something. I'd thought it was maybe tea but out of the corner of my eye I saw a glass, not a mug, and thought maybe it was cognac. She looked as worried as Xavier had.

"Bobby sure keeps this fridge organized," I said. "I can tell exactly where everything is."

"That he does," Storm agreed.

I helped myself to leftover salad and then sat down next to Storm. We didn't talk for a while, which was one thing I really liked about Storm. You didn't need to make conversation with her if you didn't want to, and it never felt awkward. I was so comfortable with the rest of the team that I felt that way about most of them, at least the ones who I'd lived and worked with for so long.

But I was curious about something and so I asked Storm. "You spoken to Jean lately?"

Storm got a slight smile on her face. "You can talk to Jean yourself, you know."

"Yeah, I know. But you're a mite closer to her than I am." I stabbed my fork into the salad. "Plus I'd hate to ask her and there be no news."

Storm nodded. "I did ask her how she is doing recently. I believe she likes it when others show concern for her and her situation."

I looked at my bowl while I chewed. The good part of me knew that Storm was right. The bad part of me had trouble mustering up much concern for Jean's situation when I compared it to my own. Not being able to have a baby ain't quite as bad as not being able to even touch the man you're in love with.

The good part of me won out. "You're right," I said. "I'll talk to her."

"There has been nothing new on that front, as she told me," Storm went on. "She is still not conceiving. She is considering going to see a specialist."

Jean and Cyke had been trying to get pregnant for a while. I wasn't sure how long it'd been but at least a year and probably longer. I'll never forget the day when Jean happily told me that she "was late" and thought that this might be it. A few days later I saw the horrible disappointment all over her face and knew that it had been a false alarm.

Cyclops had been more on edge and more grumpy with each disappointing month. Honestly the man looked as bad as Xavier had at Magneto's service, but in his case I knew it was because of the baby situation.

"She might wanna go soon," I said. "Who knows what's gonna happen now that Magneto's been killed."

"Yes," Storm said, suddenly sounding very far away and sad. I wished I hadn't brought that that up.

"So how are things with you? You and Wolverine ever gonna get together?"

Guess I was doing whatever it took to change the subject and Storm looked none too pleased for it. In fact, I couldn't tell if she was about to roll her eyes or tell me to keep my trap shut, so I went on.

"I mean, I dunno. I think he's getting over Jean. If he'd just open his eyes and see what's right in front of him. And you, girl, I wish you'd open your eyes too. Seein' you two coaching Jubilee in the Danger Room the other day – it was like watching some old married couple and their teenager."

"That is hardly an inspiring thought, Rogue," Storm said drolly and I knew she wasn't too mad at me.

I also knew that it was gonna take more than some prompting from me for her to get over her pride and the fact that she wasn't Wolverine's first choice. Two people stubborn as mules. Well, playing matchmaker wasn't my job anyway, I'd figured. I had enough to worry about when it came to my own love life.

"Hey, Storm," I said, my voice getting more soft and serious. "Sorry for all the joking around. I just want you to be happy and…and since we're getting all serious like, there's something I gotta tell you."

"What is it?" she asked, leaning in and setting her glass down.

"I think I gotta have a very difficult talk with Remy," I admitted. I was looking down at my bowl. "Like I gotta tell him that he oughtta get out there and…and you know, date and see other women. Cause things between me and him have gone as far as they can go and I think he's holding himself back."

I don't even feel like writing the whole story out. We couldn't touch. We'd had no luck getting our hands on a Genoshan collar, and I'd had a few sessions with the Professor but wasn't any closer to getting control of my powers. Gambit had hinted several times at some "things we could do" without touching, but I didn't know how I felt about it all and what was the blasted point if I couldn't even kiss him? Seemed like kissing was what needed to come first and we couldn't do that. I knew full well he loved me and much as I wished otherwise, I loved him like crazy. But now I felt like we were stuck in a rut.

Storm knew the whole story. She and I were real close, and she was even closer to Remy.

"You might feel that way," Storm said calmly, "but Gambit might not".

"I know. So I think I gotta be real firm. Like, half the women on the planet would give their right arm to be his woman. And with Dazzler here we even got a woman here now who's single and I bet she's on the make. So I gotta cut him loose."

"Is that what you really want?"

For a second, I'd wanted to smile because I knew Storm preferred playing the counselor, much more than she liked me asking her about her and Wolverine. We'd all been through counseling with Professor Xavier at one point or another and it wouldn't have surprised me if Storm had taken notes on his technique.

"What I want is for us to be able to touch, sugar, but that ain't gonna happen. It's time to face facts. It don't matter that I love him, and I'm keeping Gambit from something better out there - and stringing my own hopes along too."

"I just hope that you think it over thoroughly before you decide to have this discussion with Gambit." Her voice was steady and she took another sip of her drink.

"Sugar, I've been thinking about this for way too long! I'll be glad when we had the talk and it's over."

That was enough on that topic, I thought. I asked Storm if she wanted to go to the mall tomorrow, and she said that "depending on what happens tomorrow" she would like to. But I think both of us knew that too much was going to happen the next day.

***

The next day, we had just gathered in the War Room when we got the news. I always thought that "the War Room" was a downright funny name for it because we worked so hard for so many years to prevent a war, and we now had one knocking on our back door. But we literally had just sat down to – as Cyclops put it – "assess the situation and strategize" when a news report came in.

Cortez had just finished rebuilding Asteroid M. In honor of "our martyr Magneto" he was going to continue to call it Asteroid M and he was inviting every mutant on the planet to "take refuge on Asteroid M and join me in a conversation about how to move forward after Magneto was so brutally taken from us by the anti-mutant humans".

"'Join him in a conversation'" Wolverine echoed, and I had to agree that this didn't sound much like Cortez.

"The only conversation he's going to hold is one leading to war," Cyclops said.

"I agree," the Professor added.

We discussed the situation some more. The various members of X-Factor who had stayed over for Magneto's memorial were sitting around the table with us, so the room was crowded and hot with the excitement or fear over the thought of what was coming next.

Seems that Cortez had really revamped his image since we saw him last. Gambit and Beast had been doing some investigations of him lately, and we'd had an inkling that he'd wanted to rebuild the asteroid but he'd done so in such quick time that even we were surprised. From all the research that Gambit and Beast had done - heck, from our own gut instincts – we could see no other purpose for Cortez gathering mutants on Asteroid M than to prepare for war.

"Last time a mutant-only asteroid was launched," Storm began, "we sent a small contingent up there, hoping to reason with Magneto. But this is completely different."

"That is very true," the Professor said. "This time, it's not Magneto we need to reason with. It is the masses of mutants who will go to Asteroid M. We need to convince them that war is not the answer, and that they need to listen to us – not Cortez."

"As Cortez has been trying to present himself as a reasonable and thoughtful leader," Hank added, "this could work to our advantage. Our research indicates that he likely won't begin with an attack on us. His strategy will be to use Magneto's death to inspire as many mutants as he can to wage war on non-mutants. I believe he will either attempt to ignore or discredit us, painting us as a group that kowtows to regular humans and doesn't speak for most mutants."

"He recently called us a group of 'Uncle Toms'," Remy said.

We talked about it some more but I knew right away where this was going. We had to get up there to Asteroid M and get mutants to see us for what we really are – and see Cortez for what he is. Staying here sure wasn't going to prevent any war.

For the rest of the day we moved faster than you could blink. The Professor got a hold of Cortez and we were told that "of course" X-men were "more than welcome on Asteroid M, as all mutants are welcome". We contacted some of the other mutant groups to find out who was going. The Morlocks were going up. We learned that Alpha Flight was going up. X-Factor was going up too of course.

Unfortunately, some folks we didn't want to run into were also going up, as Gambit and others doing some stealth work learned. The Inner Circle was packing their bags. That was one group that I sure didn't want to see again. Another anti-human group that Cyclops had run into – Children of the Shadow – was already up there. With folks like that up there, I had a sinking feeling that chaos would be in the works.

There was a lot going on with non-mutants as well. FOH was up to its usual garbage, holding demonstrations. They burned Magneto in effigy. They held signs that said stuff that makes my blood boil just thinking about it.

But what's worse was hearing the opinions of non-FOH people. There were tons of interviews and opinion polls on TV and all over the internet. Seemed that most folks wanted us to go, and plenty of folks wanted the governments of the world to launch an all-out attack on Asteroid M just as soon as most mutants boarded it. I expected this hog slop from FOH but not from the rest of the world.

We also contacted our own government. With Kelly no longer the president, we didn't have the influence on our government that we'd had in the past. But we did send the message that we'd do everything we could to de-escalate the situation and prevent a catastrophe.

Then there was so much to do around the mansion. We had to close up a lot of our equipment and weapons. We had tons and tons of files and other computer equipment to back up and move. We had to pack our own belongings. Cyclops and Storm organized everything and barked out orders, and I think the rest of us just followed best as we could.

***

We had one last dinner back at the mansion. Xavier insisted, which I thought was real sweet and real smart.

Sitting next to Remy at the table, I sat there blinking, having a hard time believing that it could be a while before I'd see this place again. Spent all my best years here, met and lived with everyone who mattered to me while here. I wanted to think about what it all meant but there was no time.

The talk around the table started out being about nothing else than our preparations to go, and trying to figure out what we'd experience when we got up there.

Jubilee asked a good question. "So what do you think it's gonna be like up there – like, there's gonna be thousands of mutants on Asteroid M. How are they gonna handle things like bedrooms and bathrooms, and you know – food?"

Remy, the Professor, and Beast answered her question by telling her what it was like when they were up there before, and from what they'd learned about Cortez recently. The short answer was that there'd likely be a bit of chaos from so many people arriving at once, but that Cortez did have a team he worked with and they weren't too shabby in the area of organizing things. Remy had located a draft map of the place. The individual rooms looked decent – small but they had their own bathrooms. There was a big dining room but that likely people would need to eat in shifts. They had a green house and kitchen on Asteroid M but likely were going to have to rely on food replicators to make enough for everyone. They had a convenience store but we weren't sure if Cortez had quite worked out what sort of currency Asteroid M would use.

A few people including the Professor left after they were done eating to get back to packing and other work. But most of us lingered at the table; it had been a really busy day and I was tired as a field hand. I sure wasn't the only one from the looks of things.

"Did you see the latest FOH propaganda piece?" Psylocke asked the group. She went on to describe the latest crap that FOH had on their website, their commercials, and in their leaflets. To me it was kinda like picking at a scab till it bled and I didn't want to hear all about it, but I thought Psylocke almost liked this stuff.

Things got a mite awkward at one point though. FOH loves to say the worst kinda stuff about us, and of course that means they just make shit up about us. Some of their propaganda that they've been pushing lately claims that mutants have a high number of homosexuals in their ranks. One of the X-Factor guys latched onto that when Psylocke brought it up, and he went on and on about it. He was furious at FOH saying that we had a lot of queers in our number.

I don't think he noticed that there were a few awkward glances around the table at that point. I felt weird about it when I noticed that Bobby was still here. 'Course I always had a soft spot for him, so I was glad when Hank changed the subject.

***

So this is the point where I should say that something about Bobby ended up being important to what happened on Asteroid M. So I better tell you the background.

First remember that things were different back then. A lot of years have gone by since these events I'm describing for you. Back then there were things you didn't ever talk about, and I grew up calling people like Bobby "queers".

Way back when I joined the X-men, I liked Bobby - me and Remy became friends with him pretty quickly. He was easy going and we liked his practical jokes. I remember Remy once saying to me that it was odd that Bobby didn't seem interested in dating girls - especially since there was one not that much younger than him right there, one who seemed to like him. (Jubilee). He told me he thought Bobby might be queer but back then I thought that was a really bad thing to be and I'd told Remy to shut up.

But we learned the truth of it all one night when we'd gone out with Bobby and we'd all had a few drinks. The boy does not hold his alcohol and he told us his whole story after Remy had asked why things hadn't worked out with Lorna. Bobby had hemmed and hawed, and then I nearly fell out of my seat when Remy had asked him if he was a homosexual. I'd wanted to slap Remy but Bobby seemed okay with the question.

Bobby said he hoped we'd still want to hang out with him and all, but that yes he was. He said he'd seen the Professor about it and had asked if he could be cured since he wanted to be "a normal guy". He said that he and the Professor met several times and the Professor had concluded that there simply was no cure, and that Bobby had to learn to be happy with this condition. He told us that he and the Professor had told Hank, and that Hank had said it made no difference to him. I remember exactly what Bobby had said next. "That was that, and me and Hank haven't ever talked about it since". I'd almost wondered if he was starved to talk about it and that's why Remy and me were getting the full scoop.

The guy's got guts, I'd thought. Either that or he was stone drunk, but that had to be hard to admit. I'll say it again, where I grew up you did not talk about this unless you were a preacher at the pulpit telling folks they'd go to hell if they were like this. And things hadn't much changed since I left the South.

But Remy and I said we were cool with it, and maybe I wasn't totally cool with it but I still liked Bobby. We didn't really talk about it much after that and I gotta say that was fine with me.

It sorta became an open secret in the X-men. Everyone knew about Bobby; after all, he didn't go into combat and he didn't play sports with the other guys and he didn't date. Most of the guys kinda avoided him but they at least tolerated him. They weren't rude, they didn't kick him out if he sat down to play cards with them, ain't like we tossed him out on his ear, but most of the group sure didn't seek out his company. Bobby never seemed to mind it much, leastwise he never talked about leaving. I don't think he had anywhere else to go and he seemed happy enough here.

Maybe I shouldda felt sorry for him, over the fact that a lot of the others avoided him. But I didn't – in fact, sometimes I felt I was doing him a favor by being one of his friends. He didn't have many.

So anyway that was years before Asteroid M but I wanted to write all this out because, like I said, it ended up coming into play on Asteroid M and I remembered that comment at the dinner table the night before we left.

***

After dinner, Remy invited me up to his room for a "nightcap". Against my better judgment, I went. We drank our drinks slowly and we talked about what we were gonna pack. I knew the rooms on Asteroid M were gonna be small but I knew I'd pack every note and trinket Remy had given me over the years. I kept them in a lacquered box I'd bought for them. I didn't tell Remy that I was bringing them though, just told him I'd be sure to pack the bracelet he'd given me. It had emeralds in it, to match my eyes.

Remy then asked me how I felt about leaving the mansion. I said I was sad, but what he didn't know is that I was more sad about the fact that I had to soon tell him that I was gonna cut him loose.

But my resolve went right smack down the drain that evening.

When we finished our drinks, we sat together. I was somehow in his lap but careful to keep my face away from his face. Remy murmured something about that it didn't matter what happened in the future as long as we were together. I loved the way his voice sounded, like I could listen to it forever. It was low and sexy. I even just liked the sound of his breathing. Usually all this made me mad but that night the anger just kinda drained out of me and I liked all the feelings he was causing in me. Somehow one of my hands was touching his arm, feeling the muscles through his shirt. They felt amazing. I took one of my fingers and just slowly traced his chin and cheek, wishing with all my might that I could take the stupid glove off.

Remy's hands started roaming too. By then I was really feeling a mess of feelings. Like I was outta control, drowning in what I felt but that night I was kinda okay with the drowning because I didn't want his warm hands off my body. His hands touched my back.

But I had to stop it. One of his hands had slowly made its way to my breasts and it cupped one of them. Still had all my clothes on of course but let's just say my nethers were on fire so I had to do something. I took his hand and moved it back away.

"You liked that, chere, didn't you?" he murmured.

"You some kinda masochist?" I shot back. "You know we can't do anything."

"I told you chere. Remy's got plenty of ideas for what we can do."

"That's all fine and dandy, Swamp Rat but I told you. Ain't worth it if we can't even kiss!" I added, "Good night, Cajun."

With that, I stood up and went back to my own room. Why couldn't I be stronger? Heck, at least I figured that when we're on Asteroid M there'd be tons of good-looking mutant women and hopefully he'd meet one and realize he could get a much better deal than what he had. (The little voice in the back of my head told me he sure had to already know that, but I pretty much ignored that voice back in those days).

Once I got to my room let's just say that I did something that I knew for sure had to be a sin, and it was something that thoughts of Remy had driven me to do more times than I could count.

At least it allowed me to sleep pretty well that night though.

***

The next morning we left for Asteroid M. Beast and Wolverine had been outfitting the Blackbird like we had before, to get us into space. We were lucky that we had this and didn't have to wait for one of Cortez's transports. We did one last check of the Blackbird, loaded up everything, and we were off.

I'd been in space before but nothing ever really prepares you for actually being in it. The blackness all around you, while the starts are so bright. The temperature in the Blackbird might've been the same but I felt cold as soon as we left Earth's atmosphere. And small. You ever wanna feel small and insignificant, just go into space. I looked at Remy and from a glance knew that he was thinking much the same as I was thinking. But he always worried less, just took everything in stride.

I looked around at the rest of the group. I really felt that I could almost see tension just emanating out from the Professor and Scott. Moira was clutching Banshee's hand. Bobby sat in the back and I could tell he was scared. I think he was happiest when Hank was around but I knew Hank had been so busy that he couldn't have had much time for Bobby lately. Good old Storm looked solid as she always did.

Jubilee looked excited and I gotta admit that I felt excited too. Who knew which way things would go? If Cortez had his way you could bet there'd be a war, but we also stood a great chance at beating Cortez and making things better for all mutants. If we could just get enough mutants to see things our way.

We had told Cortez's people that we'd be arriving that day, and we contacted them again from space. There was no trouble docking the Blackbird. We landed inside the huge shuttle bay and started unpacking our gear. Tons of people were buzzing around that shuttle bay. Other mutant groups, and people who wore the uniforms that told us they worked for Cortez. People were unpacking, moving things, and milling about.

We hadn't gotten very far with the unloading of our stuff when Cortez himself greeted us. Two of his people were right behind him.

I ain't gonna waste the time typing out what he said. Lemme just say that he was smooth as hog fat, he welcomed us to Asteroid M, and the words "thrilled to have the esteemed X-men here" actually came outta his mouth. He said that he wished he could give us the tour himself but since he had so much going on, he'd delegate it to one of his top people, a solid looking woman who he introduced as Tess.

Cortez had just finished telling Cyclops where we could store some of our larger equipment when he stopped in mid-sentence. He looked at us and then said, "We're doing a census to keep track of who all is residing on Asteroid M. You…you are all mutants, right? Do you have any non-mutant humans with you?" I can't quite describe his tone of voice except to say that we knew his question meant trouble.

Several of us X-men glanced at Moira. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that many of the other folks in the shuttle bay – not X-men – stopped what they were doing to listen.

I guess Xavier figured that there was no point in lying, since a simple scan could call out the truth.

"Dr Moira MacTaggert is not a mutant," Xavier said. "However you must be aware of her pioneering work. She has fought for our rights more tirelessly than most mutants I know."

To someone who didn't know the Professor, he'd sounded firm enough. But there were little things giving it away, how he really felt. His eyes looked right worried and I thought I saw a bead of sweat on his face. Can't blame him for being unsettled. I mean, heck he loved Magneto has a brother and the man still wasn't cold in his grave.

It surprised me how fast the bustling shuttle bay had gone quiet as a humid summer night. Now it seemed that everyone was listening to us.

"My husband Banshee is a mutant," Moira spoke up. "So was my son Proteus, but he was killed by mutant-hating mobs."

Banshee didn't look worried, just mad as all get out. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Moira's one of us, Cortez. I hope this isn't going to cause a problem."

"Not at all," Cortez said. "Asteroid M is for mutants only, but for someone who has fought for our rights as Dr MacTaggert has – and as you said, who has chosen to live among mutants – we will most happily make an exception. This time."

Cortez left us alone after that and we went back to what we were doing. I don't know why but I felt kinda bad for Moira. It had to be hard to be singled out like that. But I told myself that the Professor and the others were right there behind her, so I was sure she'd be fine.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter Two

Tess – one of Cortez's people who met us in the shuttle bay - gave us a tour. The place was huge, and teeming with mutants. We got out of the shuttle bay and into the corridors, and there were mutants all about. Didn't take long to realize that if you were the kinda person who liked your peace and quiet, you wouldn't be too happy up here and I worried a bit about Wolverine who was loyal to us but always such a darn loner at heart.

The tour took better part of the morning because Asteroid M is so huge, and we had a big group, and sometimes we'd run into a mutant we knew.

We passed a bulletin board – an old-fashioned thing, looked like it was made of actual cork. Tess said that this would be the central spot for any messages to be posted, but that if we brought our hand held devices we'd get the messages electronically. Fortunately we all had the hand helds, but I thought folk like the Morlocks who probably didn't have much fancy technology could use this board to get news.

The bulletin board announced that there'd be a meeting in the assembly hall the next day to discuss "the future of mutantkind after the martyrdom of Magneto". (Please!) It said that every Asteroid M resident was "welcome and encouraged to attend the meeting". Guess I don't need to say that we sure all planned to be there.

Tess was friendly enough, and she showed us to the dining room, the store, rec room, sick bay, assembly hall, observation lounge, library, gym, meeting rooms, and movie theater. Storm took special note of the greenhouse. Tess showed us where the Control Room was but didn't let us enter. I figured that to walk from one end of this place to the other would take a long time.

Using her hand held device, Tess assigned each of us a room and we each brought our luggage to our respective rooms. Remy was right: the rooms were small. A while ago we X-men had all gone on a cruise and the rooms here were a mite smaller than the cabins on the cruise ship. Each one had a bed, a desk, chair, and closet – and not much else. Barely enough room to turn around in. But thank heavens above that they each had their own bathroom including a shower. I sure didn't want to have to share that kinda thing with strangers. Guessed I'd been spoiled all those years in the mansion.

Tess explained some of the other logistical stuff with how Asteroid M works. If you had money, you could pay your room and board, and purchase stuff from the store. What they were charging was pretty reasonable, I reckoned after glancing at some of the prices in the store. But even if you couldn't afford it, you could sign up to work. There was plenty of stuff that needed to get done on the asteroid, kitchen type work, mechanical, janitorial, and so on. So any mutant who was willing to put in a few hours' work on most days could pay for their stay here, easy as pie.

Honestly by this point my jaw wanted to drop open and a couple of the X-men didn't hide their surprise. It was kinda scary that Cortez had put together an operation that looked this organized and, you know, normal. This sure wasn't the Cortez that I remembered from our last run in with the jerk. I guessed that maniac wanted to win over mutants so badly that he went to this level of detail and that was downright worrisome.

***

We didn't get any slow down that first day. Right after our tour, the Professor wanted us all to meet. Storm pressed a few buttons into her device and one of the meeting rooms was booked for us X-men.

The meeting room – like pretty much every other room in this place – was nothing fancy. Cortez may've been organized but he sure didn't believe much in decorating. The rooms and their equipment and furniture had a white and metallic color scheme going on and that was it. The meeting room was a bunch of tables and chairs. There wasn't a huge circular table like in the War Room so we just took the chairs and made them into a circle.

The thing that most caught my eye about the layout of the meeting room – in fact, about the whole asteroid - was that most rooms had huge windows. You could stare out into space and look at the stars.

We talked about a lot of stuff, but at this point it ain't worth spelling out everything. We talked about the big meeting that was gonna be tomorrow. We got updates as to when the Morlocks and X-Factor would be arriving, and we made plans to get with them. We also wanted to get a sense of what the mutants on board the asteroid were thinking now, so we had an idea of where things stood before the big meeting the next day. So most of the group was asked to just get out there, explore the place and talk to people. Someone also had to talk to Tess to cover off on paying for our room and board up here. The Professor was gonna try to get back in touch with the White House and the UN, so they knew what was going on and could be reassured that at least the X-men would do everything in our power to prevent a war.

***

So that was the meeting. I wasn't asked to meet with the Morlocks or X-Factor so Remy and I spent most of the rest of the day walking around the place and trying to talk to people to get their ideas about tomorrow's meeting – and what in the heck they thought all us mutants should be doing up on Asteroid M.

We stopped in sick bay at one point. Hank was there, offering his doctoring services. Cortez had a doctor on his team (another thing that near made my jaw open) but Hank was made to feel welcome in sick bay too. Any doctor who wouldn't welcome him was a darned fool, that's for sure. I wasn't a doctor but to my eye, the infirmary looked pretty well stocked, full of fancy equipment. Hank said it should be more than adequate, "assuming my estimate of the number of inhabitants of this space station is not too far from accurate".

When we were there, the doors opened up and Bobby walked in. He asked if they had any vitamin C pills or Echinacea. Hank asked if he was coming down with a cold.

"No," Bobby said. "It's Jubilee. She told me she's got a tickle in her throat and she wasn't hungry at lunchtime. She thinks she's coming down with something. Poor thing."

Bobby always had a soft spot for Jubilee – heck, most of the team did – so as soon as Hank gave him the stuff he high-tailed it for Jubilee. I hoped she'd be okay.

Speaking of lunch, Gambit wasn't too impressed with the food on the space station. Me, I ain't the most fussy eater but Remy is. So we headed back to the dining room and kitchen. Funny thing is that Jean was already there.

She and Remy talked a bit. The X-men had plenty to do but Remy and Jean wanted to see about making the food better. The way the space station was set up, some of the folks who couldn't pay their room and board worked in the kitchen. And like I said, the food itself came from a combination of the green house and frozen foods and other stuff Cortez's people had shipped up from earth – and stuff from the food replicators since the green house and our other supplies couldn't possibly feed everyone on here. Jean and Remy spent a few hours fiddling with the replicators and talking with the kitchen staff people.

I watched Jean for a bit. It definitely wasn't the right time – so much was going on – but I knew I'd have to say something to her and offer to listen if she wanted. She just wasn't "up" and smiling like she normally is. I knew from talking with Storm that it had to be the baby thing. Then I smirked to myself that Cortez was so darn organized, maybe he had a fertility specialist on board.

Maybe, I thought, I could sit with Jean and tell her that I knew how she felt. We both wanted something desperately and couldn't have it. 'Course I figured I wouldn't tell her that I had decided to break if off with Remy and tell him to find someone else. That wouldn't give her much hope on the baby front. Just thinking about splitting with Remy made my heart turn all cold – I think I dreaded that more than I did the idea of a war, so I had to go set my mind on something else.

And I did. While Remy and Jean were doing their thing in the kitchen, I hung around the dining room and talked to people like we'd been instructed to. I'd say I could feel energy and excitement and fear in the air soon as I stepped on board, and I still felt it thick like humidity in the summer.

It had been a while since I'd been around so many mutants at once. 'Course I lived with the X-men but you know you just kinda get used to your own family and they seem normal after a while. On Asteroid M there were powerful mutants and mutants without any powers. Some looked normal, some looked downright weird. You saw all different ages and races, and plenty of folks didn't speak much English either. Some were friendly and some weren't.

Some asked me if I was an X-man. It was a downright dumb question, but I didn't tell them that. All us X-men nowadays wore our black uniforms and each uniform had an X somewhere on them. Some of the people didn't want to talk to me when they saw that I was an X-man. I didn't know how to take that except that I had to fight my temper on that one.

The friendly ones I got to talk to, and I asked them about that. One of them said the X-men are "sorta intimidating".

One guy said that "you X-men haven't done anything for us regular mutants".

Now I can control my temper pretty well if I want to, but I felt my face get hot. I forced myself to take a breath, and in that time the first guy's friend said something to him. He said, "Hang on a minute. That's not true. The X-men fought back against the Sentinels. And that crazy Apocalypse."

"Sugar, that's just the tip of the iceberg," I said. And I wished we'd done a PR campaign, but you know it's kinda hard to do that when you're fighting just to keep yourself and the rest of the planet alive.

I went on to say more about what we'd done over the years, but the creepy thing was that the first guy had just shut down. You know how you can tell when someone's just not listening to you? Like say you disagree on a social or political thing, and you're trying to explain your point of view but you can tell the other person ain't considering any views but his own? That was how it was.

But I thought – I hoped – that some other folks around us were listening.

When I could actually talk to people, I wanted to see what they thought of Cortez and – you know – what we're doing up here and what they wanted up here. Some folks said they just wanted to be around mutants and get away from regular humans. Some wanted to just live their lives in peace and hoped they could do that up here. Also, some of them said that they didn't have a job or money back on earth and they really liked the way you could just work for your room and board here. I reckon that a lot of mutants can't get hired at a regular job.

But that wasn't what everyone said. Magneto's name came up a lot. So did the names Genosha, FOH, and other extremist groups. I heard stories about folks getting beat up by regular humans, getting their houses burned down, and one woman said they killed her husband. I wasn't surprised – think 'bout what happened to Moira's son.

And along those lines, I shouldn't have been surprised - and I guess I wasn't - but most of the mutants up here had had pretty tough lives. And that made them kinda all jagged around the edges. What made it worse for them is that most of them hadn't had a group of people like the X-men. My life hadn't been too much of a picnic either, but having the other X-men made it go from tolerable to good. I felt bad that these folks weren't part of groups and didn't have that.

The people who wanted a war – I tried to find out if any of them had ever fought in battle. Most hadn't. It was scary to see that some of them hated non-mutant humans as much as we were hated. One of them told me that he didn't "buy any stupid ideal of humans and mutants working together," and a bunch of others nodded when he said that.

Bobby popped into the dining room when I was winding down my socializing with the folks there. I asked him how Jubilee was and he said he thought she would be fine but he'd keep checking in on her.

Something else happened later that day. Remember that the Morlocks and X-Factor arrived on Asteroid M later that same day, and that different X-men were assigned to go meet with them.

Storm went to meet with X-Factor. We'd had members of their team at our mansion just the day before (though I gotta say it all felt like much more than one day had passed), but their leader Forge hadn't been one of them. So Storm went to meet with Forge and talk about what might happen on Asteroid M and how both our teams could prevent a war.

Put that thought in the back of your mind, and I'll tell you what I saw when it was dinner time. All of us X-men had planned to get to the dining room at the same time and eat together. We also talked about what we'd done that day. I sure liked getting back with everyone again, 'cause like I said that day was flying by and I had to know what everyone else had been up to.

But we later found out that other mutants wondered why all the X-men sat together at one table during dinner and didn't hang out with other people.

Apart from everything else going on, something was up with Storm. She had this look on her face that I hadn't ever seen from her before. I was dying to know what it was. Then someone who was sitting next to Wolverine said something, and when I looked that direction I saw that Wolverine had this look on his face. I might not've recognized Storm's look but I'd sure seen Wolverine's look before. The damn fool was jealous.

Had seen that look from him often enough over the years, given all the time he spent with Jean and Scott. I had to find out what he was jealous about, 'cause I had an inkling and I wondered if it could be true.

And Remy and I were two peas in a pod like usual because as soon as I could get him alone, I mentioned this and he'd not only seen the same thing but had an idea as to what was going on. So we hunted Storm down.

***

"I can't speak with you right now," Storm said to us in the corridor. "I need to meet with the Morlocks."

"Wolverine and Beast met with Callisto just a few hours ago," Remy said. Wolverine and Beast had been picked to meet with the Morlocks given what they had done for Leech a few Christmases ago. "They got it covered."

"I know," Storm said. "I would've been there as well if I hadn't been meeting with Forge at the same time."

"You know, Storm," I pressed, "maybe it's better that we left it to Wolverine and Beast. Callisto might still hold a grudge against you – not that any sane person would think they got a reason to, but there's no tellin' with Callisto."

Storm was quiet for a second. "You might be right," she admitted. Then it seemed like she looked around in her head for something else to do. So I then reminded her how those of us who hadn't met with the Morlocks or X-Factor had already been doing what we were told to earlier at the meeting: talk to the mutants on this station, get the lay of the land, find out what people thought. Angel and Psylocke had spoken with that Tess lady to settle the X-men's finances for our stay on Asteroid M. Storm knew I was right 'cause what else do you think we X-men had talked about during dinner?

"So how 'bout a game of pool instead?" Remy asked.

Storm looked like she wanted to say no – I knew how much she loved to keep busy – but she agreed, and we made our way to the rec room. We didn't get lost on the way there which really was kinda a miracle.

When we got there, the rec room was buzzing just like the rest of the place. It still felt exciting and weird to be around so many mutants. There was only one empty pool table left and we took it.

"I am concerned by what I heard at dinner," Storm said, even before her first turn. "Wolverine and Beast said that not every Morlock is in agreement about trying to avoid a war."

"Gambit ain't too worried," Remy said. "Callisto's with us."

"She always whips her team into place," I added. "I wouldn't worry too much if a few of them have doubts."

I was trying to turn the conversation around to where Remy and I wanted it, when Forge walked into the rec room. He saw Storm – who I gotta admit was facing away from him and bending over to make her shot – and made a beeline for us.

Storm turned around soon as she saw that Forge was there. She looked all flustered and excited. I was pretty amazed. No, I'd never seen this before.

And heck, in my only interactions with Forge before, he'd been so darn serious and dry. There was a new side of him right there in front of us when he and Storm got to talking. All I can say is that from his tone of voice and the look in his eyes, he sure wasn't trying to play coy regarding his interest.

So it took Remy and me just a few seconds to figure out the situation. "We'd better go check on Jubilee, chere," he said. "See if she's feelin' better."

"Yes!" I agreed. "We'll see you two later."

And we hightailed out of the rec room, nearly bumping into someone on the way out.

"Remy guesses we know why Wolverine looked so jealous at dinner," he said as we walked down the corridor.

"Yeah, funny how that is," I said, kinda smirking. "Does he need for a woman to be with another guy – or pursued by another guy – in order for him to get interested in her?"

"Dat could be," Remy said. "Some guys are like dat."

"I wonder what's gonna happen."

"I dunno. Those two, Storm and Wolverine, still stubborn as mules and proud too. He don't act fast, Forge gonna win Storm over. Remy thinks the old fool gonna let Storm slip right outta his fingers."

We came to an elevator bank. Remy slowed down his pace. "You wanna come to my room, chere? Maybe we have a cuddle again."

I started to think right then and there that maybe Remy was masochistic. Or maybe he really was crazy. What guy in his right mind would want to sit there and cuddle and not be able to do anything more?

I didn't answer his question. Instead I muttered, "Least Storm can touch a fellow. Wolverine maybe is a stubborn old man and Forge maybe serious as mud, but one of them could at least get touched by her if she wants."

"Chere," Remy said. His voice was soft, soothing, and quiet. In that one syllable he told me to not go there again and that everything was okay. And that maybe made my heart break even more. Especially when I thought of how I had to end things with him and do it soon.

Which meant that I had to be a heck of a lot more firm than I was the day before.

"It's okay, Remy," I said, and I knew my voice was also quiet and very sad. "It's been a long day. I'm headin' for the library to see what they have and maybe just go to my room for a read."

He looked down and nodded. Then he reached for my hands, kissed my gloves, and let me go.

I found out the next morning that Dazzler gave a concert in the assembly hall late that evening. I heard that Remy was there and I hoped he liked it.

They say you can't miss what you never had but that night, I put my book away and got under the covers alone. I wanted Remy's arms around me, I wanted to fall asleep at his side.

***

I got up early the next morning. There was a message on my device with a time for us X-men to meet for breakfast, those who wanted to get up early enough. Remy wasn't there, but that wasn't a surprise. The man loved to sleep in and I usually did too. But there was such a feeling of urgency in the atmosphere on Asteroid M – like I said, you could feel it like humidity in August, like a thunderstorm was about to hit – that I woke up early.

Wasn't much worth writing about with the breakfast. Cyclops said that Alpha Flight was arriving today, and he assigned me to go along with him to meet with them. The Professor was pretty sure that both the Inner Circle and Children of the Shadow also would get here before the big meeting in the assembly hall. He said we might want to keep our eyes on them from afar. Sitting down and having a civilized meeting with them probably wasn't gonna be possible given the bad histories we had with those troublemakers.

Speaking of meetings, the Professor also wanted to talk to Cortez. We decided we'd wait until after the big meeting today to see how it went. We'd kinda tip-toed near the subject of meeting with Cortez yesterday but Tess had said his schedule was way too busy.

And of course the most important thing that day would be the big meeting in the assembly hall to talk about what we were all going to do up here. The Professor said to make sure that anyone who missed this breakfast get filled in (people looked at me – but Remy wasn't the only one who slept in!) and to make sure that everyone was at tonight's big meeting. I don't think anyone would miss that for the world.

This day rushed by much like yesterday did. Cyclops' and my meeting with Alpha Flight was downright uneventful. We met with Mac and Heather – the husband and wife who ran it. Good news was that they wanted peace as much as we did, but the bad news was that Alpha Flight didn't exactly have strength in numbers. We asked them how many people they had with them now, and they looked at each other and told us. The answer was eight. A lot of mutants know about them and their work, but with such small numbers it didn't seem like they'd have influence over people.

I kinda wanted to talk to Cyke after our meeting, see how he was doing. But he was down to business as usual and just not in the mood for talking. You could see the tension on his face from the set of his jaw, and hear it in his voice though he tried to cover it. I hoped that he and Jean would get that baby they wished for but there sure wasn't much I could do about it.

Yeah, and speaking of folks who don't open up, I didn't get much out of Storm either. I saw her later that day. She mentioned that she and Forge went to Dazzler's concert last evening but she wouldn't say anything more than that.

Heck, I don't blame Cyclops and Storm for being serious. The big meeting was coming up, Asteroid M was jammed with mutants, and a lot of them were angry. I talked to folks, just as I had the day before. Seemed that plenty of them just weren't worried at all about the downside of making war on the rest of (non-mutant) humanity. Maybe by design the people who came up here were the ones who wanted to be apart from non-mutants. That meant that a lot of the folks who wanted a quiet life were plain left out of the picture, sitting pretty back on earth.

My communicator beeped and it was Remy. He wanted to know if I'd meet him at the gym. I silently cursed the way my heart went flip flop, and said I'd meet him in 15 minutes. I'd been wanting to check out the gym here anyway. I threw on a grubby workout outfit and headed for the gym.

'Course when I entered the gym I saw Gambit wearing his own grubby workout clothes, but he still somehow looked handsome. You know handsome is an understatement, but the man made me tongue-tied anyway.

"Given how many folks are livin' up here now," I said to Remy, "I'm surprised this place ain't more crowded".

And it was true – the gym was clean and spacious, but hardly anyone was in it other than me and Remy.

He said, quietly, "Remy think that maybe other people ain't into pushing themselves like we are." Then he asked, "What do you want to start with, chere? Weight machines?'

I wasn't sure if Remy was kidding or not. I could lift any of the machines in this room – the whole machine - with one hand. But we didn't have a Danger Room on Asteriod M. "I wonder, Remy," I said. "If I don't use the Danger Room and we don't go into battle for a while, would I be not as strong? Ain't never really had a chance to test this, you know."

Gambit was about to say something when several of our team walked into the gym. Angel, Pyslockle, Cannonball, Colossus, and Banshee all headed in.

It was nice to see them all, we said our hellos, and then got down to business. I got on one of the cardio machines, since I like to make sure my endurance stays up. I had a good view of the rest of the gym from the way my machine was facing, and had to admit that I wasn't thinking much about my endurance. Rather, I was thinking how good Remy looked lifting weights. I tried to make myself think back to my training but it was better to look at Remy.

I got off the cardio machine after a while – my heartbeat was up too high anyway.

A minute or two after I'd mosied over to where the others were with the weights, Bobby entered the gym. He spotted all of us right away and came right up to us.

I was glad he was there. He didn't train much, fought in battle even less – which was a crying shame because his powers were nothing to sneeze at, the guy just didn't seem to wanna use them much.

But I guess the others didn't see it that way. Angel, Pyslockle, Cannonball, Colossus, and Banshee started by ignoring him, even though they were talking with each other, spotting each other while doing their lifting, that sort of thing.

Angel then opened his mouth and told a joke. I won't repeat it but let's just say that it centered around making fun of queers. The others laughed.

And then it got even worse. Cannonball – who I used to think was this sweet, shy southern gentleman but who I guess had his insecurities – turned to Bobby and asked if he knew any other good jokes along those lines. That just about made my blood freeze for a second.

I also turned my head and noticed that the two or three non-X-men in the gym were watching us. Banshee looked uncomfortable but the others didn't.

Cannonball and a few of the others pressed Bobby for an answer to the question, Bobby finally mumbled, "No," and he turned right for the door and left.

Remy and I looked at each other. I kinda didn't want to, but somehow the two of us left the gym. We went after Bobby, the door to the gym sliding shut behind us.

He was slightly ahead of us in the corridor. "Hey, Bobby!" I called to him. "Slow down."

I saw his neck and shoulders tense up but he slowed down and turned around. And I looked at Remy because I didn't know what to say next.

"Want to check out dat bar and get a beer?" Gambit asked. He always thought of the right thing.

I brushed a hand against my damp forehead. "I'm all sweaty from my workout," I said. "But I can shower fast. I'd like to check out that bar myself."

"That's okay," Bobby said, kinda mumbling. "I'm not thirsty."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Come on, it'd be fun," Gambit added.

"That's okay," Bobby said again, and he took off.

See, here's what's even worse. I didn't really want to go with him. I don't think Remy did either, and I guess someone can tell when you make an offer outta pity 'cause that's what happened. I didn't like what happened in the gym but didn't mind watching the Iceman walk away either. I don't know.

At least it took my mind off of thoughts of Gambit taking his shower, which he did next. Once we were both cleaned up, it was time for our assignment.

At Cyke's request, we did some undercover work to check on Children of the Shadows. (Other X-men were assigned the Inner Circle). But ain't much to say here. They didn't cause any trouble that day, not as far as we could tell. I kinda had fun in the act of spying on them with Remy, but the Children themselves were boring.

 

I put off talking with Remy about what I knew I had to talk about with him. Which, if you've been reading all along here, you ain't surprised about. I wasn't in a hurry to feel my heart getting stomped on by watching his heart get stomped on.

***

And then it was time for the big meeting. The room was so full that I figured pretty much every mutant on the station had to be there, and Tess had told us earlier that over a thousand folks now were on Asteroid M.

We all got to the assembly hall early, and sat near the front. X-Factor arrived right after and sat near us. Eventually Alpha Flight and the Morlocks followed suit. Jubilee was still sick – she was fighting something off, Hank said he thought it was just the common cold – but she didn't want to miss the meeting.

Later still the folks who we didn't like mosied in – the Inner Circle and Children of the Shadow. The noise level in the assembly hall grew and the room really started buzzing. For just a second I almost felt dizzy. All these years we X-men lived at the mansion, we worked as hard as field hands, and sometimes we worked with other mutants and the government and such – but we also kept to ourselves a lot. We spent a lot of time inside that mansion, when we weren't battling against Apocalypse or Sinister or Sentinels. We logged a lot of time tucked away in our rec room. It was exciting and scary to be around so many mutants now.

Cortez's people started setting up microphone stands in the aisles – we guessed that they wanted to let people be heard. There were three of these microphone stands. And once again, I gotta say that Cortez had organized things shockingly well, though at this point I'd figured I had to stop being surprised about it. When it was time for the meeting to get underway, the man himself stood on the stage and he spoke to the group.

I ain't gonna write out all of what he said. He may've whipped this place into shape but he still made my skin crawl and I ain't gonna pay him the respect of writing out what came outta his mouth word for word.

Cortez started by talking about "the question of" why we were here on this space station "and what we hope to accomplish". He said that he was not up on the stage to force his opinions on anyone or convince anyone "but rather to hear what the common mutant thinks about our present condition". So he said the purpose of this gathering is to "let the people speak" and determine our course of action that way.

He then went on to explain that anyone who had a thought or opinion should line up by one of the microphones. He would alternate calling on each one "thus allowing every mutant to be heard".

The Professor, Cyclops, and Storm had had it figured out as soon as they saw the microphones. Each one got up and headed towards one, and not a minute too early. Apparently we mutants are right desperate to be listened to, because faster than I could blink, there was a line at each microphone. A long line.

So you want me to cut to the chase? I will, and it ain't pretty. At least half the darn room wanted war. Judging by the applause for the people who spoke, it very likely was more than half the room.

You can't find a much more articulate speaker than the Professor, and Cyclops and Storm aren't bad either. They've all had plenty of practice – especially Xavier – speaking before government bodies and on TV. Hank later got in line for one of the microphones, and to use a word he would, he was 'eloquent' - though he tossed in one too many of his ten dollar words and I'm not sure everyone understood him. The leaders of the groups we were on good terms with (X-Factor's Forge, the Morlocks' Callisto, and Mac from Alpha Flight) got up to speak too and did fine.

The Professor, Cyclops, and Storm got a respectable amount of applause after they spoke, and Hank got some too but less so. But it was the mutants who got up there and wanted a war who the crowd seemed to take to.

Honestly I had to sit there and remember to breathe. Were they a bunch of half-wits? Did they have any idea what a war would mean? Did they want to see plenty of innocent human beings – mutant or not – get killed or injured? They honestly seemed to think that heading back down to earth with weapons and opening fire on anyone who opposed this hoard of mutants would magically make life better for every mutant on the planet. They seemed to think that it would all be over in one battle, and once we'd won it for all mutantkind then the rest of humanity would bow down and give us whatever we wanted.

The Professor, Cyclops, and Storm all made logical rebuttals to these points and a dozen more – much better than I would've - and I couldn't figure why more folks didn't seem to listen to them.

It got worse too. Some of the people who wanted war – they attacked us when they spoke. It started out with some kinda veiled comments. One of the Children of the Shadows speakers said that he loved "the way Cortez has it up here. He's let every mutant live here, even if they can't pay. He doesn't hide himself and his people away in a mansion".

I wish I could've spoken and said that I didn't have five dollars to my name when Xavier found me and took me in. Neither had Jubilee or half our blasted team for that matter!

Then another speaker: "I wasn't lucky enough to be part of a group of wealthy and well-connected mutants with huge powers. I live in the trenches and struggle for my life. And I think most of you come from the same background. What do we have to gain by appeasing the humans? They've never listened to us. Groups like the X-men don't speak for me because they're always kowtowing to the humans!" (Unfortunately there was a lot of applause after this).

And another used "the martyr" Magneto's name and said that the X-men fought against Magneto "all the time". He didn't say anything about the fact that Charles and Magneto were friends, too, who cared about each other even though they disagreed fundamentally. I couldn't see the Professor's face when Magneto's name was said.

And it went on with a few other comments that dug us in the ribs. I sat next to Remy and he held my hand. I looked at him and the others and felt a lot of rumblings of fear in my belly.

Oh, and people talked about FOH a lot too. Like the fact that FOH existed meant we could justify making war on all non-mutant humans. That's real logical.

So all this talk went on for two hours or so. Then Cortez got back on the stage and announced that he had an idea. He said, "I see a lot of passion and excitement in the room, and I see several organized groups of mutants here. I propose an election".

He went on to describe the details behind his idea, which he obviously had thought through long before the meeting was ever called. He said that the election should be in seven days, "which provides enough time for us to think through the ideas we heard tonight, and discuss and debate them more - until each of us is satisfied that he knows the right decision".

Instead of electing an individual, he proposed electing one of the teams that was already in place. He said, "That team will represent us and guide our decisions for our next steps from here. We will consider them to be our leaders." Cortez didn't forget to add that he and his people would be one of the teams "running for the privilege of representing you". He also said that if there are mutants who want to form a team but haven't done so already, they should form within the next 48 hours so they could get on the ballot.

People clapped when Cortez was done, and he then called for a show of hands to measure support for his plan. Nearly everyone in the entire room raised their hands, and after that Cortez officially and formally adjourned the meeting. So we were having an election in seven days.

I knew that my life for the next seven days I wouldn't be thinking of as "Monday" or "Tuesday" anymore, but instead "six days before the election," "five days before the election", and so on.

I suppose I don't gotta mention that we X-men had a meeting right after this meeting. For a group of people who love action – and I'm one of 'em – this was a lot of sitting on our rumps. But it was also on matters of life and death, so we didn't complain. Jean whipped out her hand held device and used it to book one of the smaller meeting rooms, and off we went.

At our meeting, we talked fast. We felt urgency. We knew that if the election was held today, we'd lose. We had seven days to turn things around, and we vowed to work non-stop to make it happen. A few things we decided to do: get a handle on what campaigning would look like during the next seven days (would there be a debate? Were there any rules we should follow?); get out and talk to as many people as we can; talk to Cortez even if it might be a lost cause; talk to the UN and the President of the US because we gotta keep them posted – but somehow we gotta do this without causing them to panic; talk to the mutant groups that we're friends with to see what their plans are because if both the X-men and X-Factor are in the running, that might split the vote of the people who'd vote our way.

Is that it? I'd worked pretty hard during my years in the X-men, but I nearly felt dead-tired after hearing about and thinking through everything we had to do. When you're fighting a battle you get an adrenaline rush, but this would just be a lot of heavy lifting.

Remy said to me on the way out that winning this election would be like winning a war. And wars are a lot harder than battles. He said it exactly, but unfortunately the mutants on Asteroid M didn't seem to realize what they were getting into.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter Three

I'll say one good thing about the next couple of days. I was so busy that I didn't have time to think much about the situation with Remy. I – along with the rest of the X-men – did exactly what we said we'd do and that meant a whole lotta work and busy time.

Seemed that campaigning on Asteroid M was largely a matter of giving speeches in the assembly hall. Cortez told us there wasn't gonna be a debate. So mostly folks campaigning gave speeches and went around and talked to people. Those first two days I helped write, edit, and proofread speeches. The speeches were given by the Professor, Cyclops, and Storm. Cortez had a website, so I also helped get our own website up and running - only those folks on Asteroid M could access it). I helped design it and proofread a huge chunk of the content.

Xavier also had me making the rounds and talking to people – he said I was good at it, and I knew I was. My voice started to get hoarse pretty quick. I liked talking and listening to folks, but I also got tired of the ones who had already made up their minds against us and that was that.

Other than us X-men and Cortez, not too many other groups ran for the leadership position. At first, both Children of the Shadow and the Inner Circle were also in the running. Children of the Shadow dropped out after less than 48 hours and threw their support behind Cortez – your guess as to why is as good as mine.

The Inner Circle was still running but I gotta say that they had it worse than even we X-men did. People thought we were high an' mighty, and filthy rich? The Inner Circle was a 100 times richer and more aloof, and folks knew it. They didn't have the "Uncle Tom" rep that we did – they hated normal humans – but they also seemed to look down on everyone else too. So they were technically in the running but pretty soon we figured that they wouldn't be as much of a threat. We kinda hoped that they might take some votes away from Cortez, figuring that folks who'd vote for the Inner Circle would've voted for Cortez before us.

X-Factor agreed early on not to run against us. I heard grumblings that some of their members – Lorna being the most vocal – were not thrilled with that decision. One day at dinner when our two teams ate together, I was right across from her and she didn't look happy. But let's just say that Storm and Forge had a great rapport and Storm got him to agree that his team would put their support behind us.

So we had X-Factor, the Morlocks, and the few members of Alpha Flight out there, talking to people and getting them behind us. They came to our speeches and clapped. They did good.

Xavier spoke with the US President and the UN. Pretty much the word was that, yeah, they were panicking and no one liked having so many mutants up on a space station. But I gotta say, things on that front weren't the crisis they could've been. Cortez of course took plenty of credit for this in his speeches and such saying how it was he who kept the powers back on earth from waging war against the space station. Far as we knew he hadn't even spoken to anyone outside of Asteroid M. Any peace-keeping was being done by the X-men. But some folks wouldn't believe this no matter what we said.

We tried to pressure Cortez into having a debate. We felt confident that we could win it. First he said no, it wouldn't be fair having three of us X-men leaders against him. We told him we would just have one up there debating with him. Then we told him that he could pick who that one was. He still didn't want to do it. We talked among ourselves about making this an issue when we did our speeches, asking what the guy had to hide.

And honestly, that Cortez was something else. He was young and good-looking, and charismatic. We tried to talk to people about some of the bad stuff he did in the past. Some listened to us, others said that Cortez had warned that we'd tell lies since we were so power-hungry and desperate to win. A lot of the mutants here had spent the past several years in hiding and on the run from mutant-haters, so they weren't up on what had really been happening the past few years and on some of the things Cortez had done. All they knew is that he gave them a shelter and a home, no questions asked and no problem if they couldn't pay as long as they didn't mind doing a little work. Unlike us X-men who, Cortez reminded folks at every opportunity, had spent the last several years living by ourselves in a mansion.

***

Two days of campaigning were over. We now had five days until the election. In a way I couldn't believe that only two days had gone by. Like I said, my voice was getting hoarse and I was tired too. I'm a pretty out-going and friendly kinda gal but even I was just plain getting sick of talking to people and trying to convince them, and my eyes were getting tired of looking at my screen when I was reading through and editing a speech that one of the others had sent to my handheld. Trying to think of a new way to say the same thing got old pretty quick.

Then on that third day, it slowly dawned on us that something had happened. It wasn't one of those things where there's a big announcement or anything like that; we just kinda slowly became aware that something had happened. I try to think of the first time I realized it, and I guess it was when Cyclops asked me, "Can you make sure that no Alpha Flight people are at our speech at the Assembly Hall – the one at 1400 hours?"

"Sure," I said. "But why?" It was a weird order.

Cyclops got a look on his face like he didn't want to talk about it, then Beast came in and said he had a bunch of revisions to his speech, and the Professor beeped me asking me to get to the meeting room inside the library and "provide our perspective" to an impromptu assembly involving Cortez's people. So off I went.

As the day went on, I pieced together what had happened. Apparently we X-men weren't the only ones who had a member who had a secret. Word had gotten out that Northstar, one of the few remaining Alpha Flight people, was a homosexual. Like I said, people didn't talk a lot about that stuff directly, not in those days. I'm not even sure how they found out though I later learned that he never really hid it that much, as most folks would've. So the word spread fairly fast and there were lots of gasps and raised eyebrows.

We couldn't abide by anything that might cost us the election. We had to deal with it fast, and we did. I wasn't there myself but apparently Cyclops told Mac in no uncertain terms that Alpha Flight had to disassociate from the X-men right away and completely. Mac apparently agreed and said that Northstar was going to pack his bags and take the first shuttle back down to the surface, tomorrow morning.

I didn't know all this at the time, but I found out later on that Northstar could be pretty stubborn. But so could Mac. But Mac agreed with us that we couldn't stand to lose this election. Plus I know that Northstar's sister has always had some mental issues – I guess it runs in the family – and somehow that made him ready to back down and leave; maybe it was the thought that a scandal would make things worse for her that sent him packing.

We X-men didn't have time to all sit together and eat a leisurely dinner in the dining hall anymore those days – which was a real shame if you ask me – but most of us were there that evening. There was a lot of whispering about what had happened, but we each had gotten the word that we shouldn't really even talk about this. Cyclops and Alpha Flight had dealt with it quickly, any sort of scandal would capsize us, and at least this was over and done with. We weren't sure how much the word had gotten out and we hoped it would blow right over.

During dinner I wondered if folks would send dirty looks or nasty words at Bobby, but I didn't see him there – didn't see him at all that day – so I couldn't say.

Cortez still hadn't agreed to a debate, and I spent the evening in one of the meeting rooms, working with Jubilee, Dazzler, and Cannonball on posters. No one else had done it but we decided to put up campaign posters. We'd have tried anything at that point.

Cyclops walked in to check on our progress. He didn't make any time for small talk, barely exchanging a hello.

"Let me see this," he said, and took the latest draft right outta Cannonball's hands.

He hadn't looked it over for but a second before he got ticked off. "This phrase at the bottom isn't right," Cyclops said. "The line is supposed to be `Vote for Your Future'".

"Cyclops, this is the exact wording I got from Storm," Dazzler said. She punched up Storm's message on her device. "See?"

I looked at Dazzler and then at Cannonball. We all had tired eyes.

Cyclops sighed and then said, sounding mighty angry, "I spoke with her about this and I thought we agreed-"

Then he stopped himself. His voice came out sounding more how it's supposed to. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like such a pill."

"It's okay, Cyke," Jubilee said. "We're all like way too tired and stressed out."

I was impressed with the little lady's comment. 'Course I kept forgetting that she wasn't 16 anymore.

"Yes," Scott admitted, and for the first time that day he sounded warm. "I guess I'm not being a very good leader, but I have to admit that sometimes I feel like I've had it. Back on earth we had the FOH types who hated us for no good reason. Then up here it seems that half the mutant population hates us. And all we're trying to do – all we've been trying to do for years - is keep the peace and make things better for everyone!"

"I know," I said. "It's enough to drive a soul crazy."

"I wouldn't expect anyone to actually thank us for everything we've done," Cyclops continued, "but I could sure do without the hate. FOH is bad enough – their latest blitz of propaganda before we came up here made my stomach turn. And Cortez's speeches get nastier and nastier, and half the people we talk to treat us like we can have a communicable disease."

I felt bad for Cyclops. My gut told me that he was upset owing to all the reasons he was sharing with us, but that this also must have something to do with him and Jean not being able to conceive. I'd had a few minutes with Jean earlier that day and one of the mutants we'd talked with on the campaign trail was a teenage girl and her baby. Jean looked just plain sad after we were done with her. I wonder if it made you feel inadequate, not being able to conceive. Like there was something wrong with you, even if you knew darn well that that thought wasn't logical and it wasn't your fault.

'Course don't get me started on what it feels like when you can't touch anyone, least of all the man you love. The man who any of the 500 mutant women on your space station would love to get their hands on.

But back to that evening in the meeting room. Jubilee added, "And the Professor isn't looking so good lately."

"I think Magneto's death is gonna hurt for a while," I said. "In fact, I'd be mighty worried if his death didn't bother the Professor."

Cyclops shook his head. "This election might be the worst thing yet though. To lose everything we've fought for, and lose it to someone like Cortez whose ideas are so crazy."

"But we haven't lost it yet!" Cannonball said. "We have a fighting chance. I think almost half the people we talk to like us."

I tried to keep Cannonball's words in mind when I plodded back to my room late that night, pulled my blankets around me, and finally fell asleep.

***

I woke up early again the next day. Four days until the election now. Somehow it seemed like not enough time and – at the same time – as though we'd been campaigning for months.

I looked at the clock and thought of trying to sleep some more but already my brain got to thinking about everything that had to be done that day and I knew it wouldn't let me sleep anymore. There weren't enough hours to get everything done. So I got in the shower and got dressed. My stomach was making rude noises so I headed right for the dining hall.

I wished Remy were up that hour, but there was no sense even beeping him. I wanted to talk to him, hear how he thought things were going. You could always rely on him to look for the sunshine in the clouds. It was uplifting being around him.

I got another pang of sadness when I thought of how turning him loose would mean we wouldn't spend much time together, and I wouldn't get to see his smile or feel him relaxing when everyone else was all tense. I had to remind myself that it was for the best and then put it out of my head best as I could.

When I got to the dining room, I realized how early it really was because there were only a handful of people there, and Storm was one of them. I put some food on a tray and sat down next to her.

"Can't wait for this coffee to kick in," I muttered. "I'm mighty tired. How are you?" I asked.

But I kinda knew what the answer would be beforehand. Storm didn't look tired at all. Her eyes looked energized and a bit sparkly. But you know Storm, she wasn't about to let loose. Not yet anyway.

"I am well, Rogue," she said. "I rose early because we have such a busy day ahead of us."

"I know," I said.

"Cortez is stepping up his smear campaign already. He is not happy with the posters we put up yesterday evening. Already I have heard his people getting the word out that he doesn't have the money to make posters, unlike us 'wealthy X-men'."

"That man is pure slime," I said, shaking my head. "Those posters didn't exactly require a fortune to make. Took more time than money, anyway." I paused. "You think people are buyin' his latest smear tactic?"

"I don't think we'll know until later on today," Storm said. "We will have to find out what our fellow inhabitants of Asteroid M say about it."

"Have you heard much more about the Alpha Flight thing?" I asked. I made my voice real quiet in case any of the half dozen folks in the cafeteria might overhear.

"No," Storm said. "I know that Northstar is leaving this morning. I think that we might have dodged a bullet there. But there is another potential problem on the horizon. I spoke with Gambit a few hours ago. He said that the Inner Circle might very well drop out of the race."

"Oh no. That'd leave just Cortez and us. The folks who would've voted for the Inner Circle…"

"…almost certainly will vote for Cortez instead of us," Storm finished.

"Great." I dug my fork into my scrambled eggs.

My thoughts changed track. "So what on earth were you doing talking to Remy a few hours ago? I know he stays up late but don't you need any sleep, girl?" I asked.

"I am fine. I don't feel the least bit tired right now."

I'd been so wrapped up with the election that I hadn't had much time to really talk to Storm. But I remembered that evening in the rec room – heck, it hadn't been that long ago - when Forge came in and spoke with Storm.

"So….anything exciting going on with you?" I asked.

Storm don't open up the way she should. I practically had to wrestle it out of her but she finally – finally – decided to talk to me about it. Maybe she figured it beat talking about depressing things like Cortez's latest claims against us or the Inner Circle dropping out of the race.

So it seems that she and Forge had been "spending time together". Seems also that Wolverine had noticed and had been getting all sweet with Storm. I had to pry and pry some more to get Storm to say what she thought and I finally determined that she was glad for all the attention and she liked both fellows. She didn't say it, but I wondered if she was having trouble making up her mind. Nearly fainted dead away at getting this much information from her. She must've really wanted to talk about it.

I told her I was glad for her. And I was. Except that I was jealous too, and I guess I showed it – I don't hide emotions too well, I know it. Storm's voice got real gentle and she asked, "How are things with Remy? Are you still going to do…what you spoke about before we left the mansion?"

I've written in here that I'd let Storm in on my plan to end things with Remy, my plans to tell him to go find someone else. I guess it makes sense that she'd wonder where things were at especially given that she and Gambit were friends.

I opened my mouth to answer, when Scott and Jean walked in. The Professor followed just a second later. They came right up to us and that ended Storm's and my little discussion. We strategized and planned out the rest of the day.

And as serious as Scott and Jean were during all the planning, I watched them out of the corner of my eye – I always did that – and could still see that they were so happy together. They didn't have it easy what with not being able to have a baby, but anyone could still see how much they loved each other. Then you got Storm sitting on my other side, all happy because she had two men interested in her and it was just a matter of time before she'd decide which one to go with.

And then there was the fact that I was keeping Remy from this kind of happiness. Because of me, he wasn't experiencing this kind of love and excitement and comfort in his life. If I really loved the man, wouldn't I want him to have all this?

And besides, like I'd mentioned before, we were now living on a space station with 1,000 other mutants – at least half of them female. Remy was surrounded by temptation. Women found him irresistible and I sure couldn't blame them. Didn't he deserve to get out there and enjoy himself with a lady, maybe fall in love with one? One he could actually touch.

I guess you could say that this wasn't the best time to end it with him, what with the election coming up. But so what? Our lives had been in a tailspin ever since we joined the X-men. In fact, I knew I'd always used that as an excuse for putting this off, saying that we had too much going on, the X-men needed Gambit too much and I couldn't upset him like this, and that I'd just deal with it when things slowed down. But things never did slow down, and I didn't think they were likely to in the near future either.

No more putting things off. I had to end it and I resolved to do just that, that very day.

***

After breakfast I was busy with - you guessed it – more election stuff, but I kept in the back of my head what I had to do that day. Late morning I texted Gambit and wrote, "You up yet, Swamp Rat?"

He texted back a few minutes later, "Still in bed. If u need me, I get up."

I texted back, "Don't hurry on my account, just wondering," and went off to do something else.

A group of us X-men went to talk to our liaison on Cortez's team, Tess. We wanted to go over the procedures they had in place to make sure the elections were fair and that votes were counted correctly. It'd be mighty easy for Cortez's group to rig the whole thing if they wanted. So we spent some time going over the voting machines and processes. We suggested having poll watchers – like they do for elections back in the good old USA – at each polling station. Tess at first didn't seem to like the idea (for some reason she'd never heard of it), but we gently pushed and got her to at least say she'd take the idea to Cortez.

It was such a weird situation. The guy who runs the space station was the guy we were campaigning against! Didn't help things.

Remy had texted me during the meeting and asked if I wanted to grab something to eat with him. I couldn't answer him till our meeting was out. He'd gone ahead and eaten already which was fine with me. I tracked him down in the dining room and I pulled together every bit of gumption that I could muster.

"Can we go talk inside my room?" I asked him quietly. "I got something private to talk about with you."

I'd thought that maybe the idea of being invited to my room would've gotten Remy all excited. But he read people too well, me especially, and he could probably see real easily that I didn't look so happy. In fact, I'm sure I looked like death warmed over because that's how I felt.

"What's wrong, chere?" he asked quietly.

His voice sounded so sad and worried that I knew that this would be even harder than I'd thought. There was pain in that voice of his. This might be one of the worst days of my life.

I silently reminded myself of all the reasons I was doing this, how it could never work out for us, how I was keeping him from being happy like Cyke and Jean. I turned towards the door, tilted my head, and said, "Come with me."

The personnel quarters here didn't give you much space, like I've mentioned, but I took a seat on the bed and gestured for Remy to sit in the chair. We hadn't spoken on the way to my room. I wondered if he knew already what I was gonna say.

"Well, Remy, I ain't gonna beat around the bush," I said, the second we were seated. "This has been botherin' me for a long time. I-I know you care about me a lot and –"

I couldn't believe it. My voice cracked. I couldn't speak. I was gonna cry.

I tried for a split second to hold it in, swallow it down. But then I caught a glimpse of Remy's face and that brought it on. My eyes watered, my insides convulsed, and I was crying.

This was bad. Couldn't remember the last time I'd cried. Well, yeah I did. It was that day we thought we were going to lose Xavier. Hadn't cried since then; it just wasn't something I did - I tell you if you'd grown up with my daddy then you'd have learned to hold things in too.

Remy had held me back then, that day that we thought the Professor was gonna die, and he got up and held me again this day. He didn't say much other than what you'd expect: some whispering, some gentle words, and something in French. He found a handkerchief from somewhere and gave it to me.

I wiped my tears, blew my nose, and did the best I could to get a hold of myself. Remy's arms around me felt so good. They were warm and comforting, and I didn't want to rip myself away from the hug. But I had to, and somehow I did.

"May I venture a guess as to what dis is about?" he asked.

I nodded. I still wasn't sure how my voice was going to sound.

"You t'ink we should end dis and not be a couple. You want Gambit to find someone else, since you t'ink I'd be happier dat way. You also noticed dat dere are a lot of good-looking mutant ladies on Asteroid M and you t'ink you're holding me back."

He said the words just all straightforward and he didn't have emotion in his voice when he said them. You may be thinking after the way I'd just broken down that those words would break me again, but they didn't. Somehow – I don't know how or why – what Remy said made me feel all the more strong.

After all, he'd had to have had those same thoughts and that's why the words had been so easy for him to say. So he too must've thought that I held him back sometimes. I told that to myself silently, and then I mustered up my strength to speak.

"That's right, Swamp Rat," I said, and my voice was strong again. I could do this. "Exactly what you said. I think I been holding you back for too long now. I think I'd rather see you be happy then feel like I'm the one keeping you from something better. I've seen how happy it makes Scott and Jean to have each other. And heck, look at how happy Storm is given that she's got a couple guys chasing after her now."

I was rambling and made myself get back to the point. I reached for Remy's hands and held them, and my voice got soft again. I made it sound full of honey. "We don't have a real future, Remy, and you gotta know that. I think bein' just friends would be the best for both of us." Then I paused.

"Besides," I went on after a second. "if I have been holding you back, maybe it's time you got out there, found yourself a woman you could really be with. Maybe you're used to havin' it tough and maybe I've been kinda a crutch to keep you from bein' happy like Scott and Jean. But I say that it ends today."

Remy listened respectfully to me. He was always good about that. You could sit next to him and talk, say your peace, or just vent and he'd always listen. Saying goodbye to all this was still excruciating, even if my gumption was better than it had been a few minutes ago.

"Do you care what I t'ink about dis, chere?" he asked quietly.

"Of course I care!" I said, probably too harshly.

"Remy t'inks we should stay together. You ain't been no crutch for me. Remy's happy now, with you. An' I t'ink you're happier with me than you'll be without me. So dere no reason to split up."

I shook my head. "I just don't see it that way. I think we'll both be better off. You need a girl you can touch."

"What make you t'ink I need a girl I can touch?" he asked. "Remy's touched enough girls in his life. Sex be a wonderful t'ing, but Remy's old enough to know dat love is better."

I blushed a little. Back in those days people didn't talk a lot about this subject and you didn't say the word "sex" much. I'd never exactly sat down with him before and told him that I felt like crap that I couldn't sexually fulfill him. Pardon my swearing.

"I hear you say that," I managed, "but I ain't sure I actually believe that. It's kinda normal to want to touch someone. And besides. You can find a woman who you can touch and who you can love. It just won't be me."

"So, what'd you have us do, chere? You want to be friends at all or you wanna try to not see each other at all?"

"It'll be mighty hard to never see each other, given the whole X-men thing. And if Cortez gets elected, given that we'll be fighting two wars. But I think that for now we should try to spend some time apart."

"You care at all what I want?"

"I told you, Remy, of course I care! You're all I think about most of the time. But I also know that it takes two people to make a relationship work, and if one of them says it's over then the other can't exactly force them to stay in it!"

"Dat be true. I am telling you, Rogue, dat both of us be happier together. Breaking up with me is a big mistake."

I knew he was serious because he said those last few sentences slowly, without contractions, and he called me by my codename instead of "chere". He had this intense look in his eyes and I knew he really wanted me to listen to him.

"Maybe you're right, Remy. But will you try it my way? I'm serious. Get out and date someone else. All this campaigning is stressful and maybe having a girl will make you feel better. Just try it and open up your mind. I think there's a girl out there who you can touch and who you can fall in love with."

"And Remy's supposed to sit by and not care dat you be miserable?"

"I won't be miserable! I'll be happy that you're happy. I'll feel good that I ain't holding you back. Mark my words, you and me will both wish we'd split ages ago, Swamp Rat."

Gambit was quiet for a while. I could tell he was thinking. He also looked –well, unsettled. But finally he spoke again.

"You're right about one t'ing, chere. Remy don't go where he's not wanted, and if you don't want me to be your man anymore, den I won't. You want me to keep my distance from you, den I will. Remy not be no stalker. So dat can be dat. But," he said, and he paused for a second, "Remy be right 'bout something else. We ain't gonna be happier dis way. Dat I know. So, may I make a proposition?"

"Of course," I said. I was a bit taken aback by that. I hadn't expected him to be exactly happy with what I had to say, but I'd kinda thought he'd just sit back and accept it like he usually does with most stuff.

"Let's talk again in three months. I am marking dis date down. In three months I want you to say if you be any happier, and I do the same. If neither of us is happier, den I t'ink we get back together again."

I thought about what he said. I also knew full well that I wouldn't be any happier, but he wasn't a mind-reader and you can't prove someone else's level of happiness. So I played along.

"Six months," I said. "Give it six months. Three ain't enough."

A second or two later we were shaking hands on our deal, though that gesture also seemed ridiculous too. Remy then kissed my glove and said goodbye.

I wanted to lay back down on my bed, crawl under the covers, and cry. I wanted to spend the whole afternoon like that. But my device beeped soon after Remy left, and it was Cyclops. An emergency had come up.

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Chapter Four

Cyclops had texted us the location of the meeting room that the X-men were meeting in. I sprang up from the bed and left my room, heading that way. I didn't see the need to fly, but I walked pretty fast.

But not fast enough that something didn't catch my eye. I saw it out of the corner of one eye and I almost kept on moving, but something made me back up and take a gander.

It was a poster. There was a poster hanging on the corridor and it wasn't one of our election posters. It was from Cortez. From my first split-second look at it, I knew it was one I hadn't seen before.

Now keep in mind that Cortez and his cronies had been smearing us for days so I was used to being ready for anything. I expected the poster to say the same old arguments against us X-men – we're rich, we're out of touch with the average mutant, we love normal humans, we don't care about the problems most mutants face, we didn't ever get the UN or the US President to do anything to help mutants – you know the drill by now.

But this poster was unlike anything I'd seen from Cortez's folks. The top part of the poster had a reproduction of a photograph. Not a drawing or illustration of any kind, just a photograph from one of the security cameras. What I believe that I noticed first was how odd this was because it didn't look like anything remarkable at first, and certainly not like anything you'd put on a campaign poster. It was a photo of a man wearing an X-men uniform. The man was leaving a room.

An inset showed a close-up of the shot. It was Bobby, clearly it was our Bobby. The inset also showed the room number of the room he was exiting. There was a date and time stamp too, and it showed that this photo was taken early this morning.

My eyes went down to the bottom of the poster to read the text, and about then is when my blood froze. The heading said this:

"X-man caught leaving the room of homosexual Alpha Flight member Northstar. Get the details on Cortez's website".

As I was staring at the poster and feeling my blood drain, two people walked by. They also stopped and looked at the poster. I guess they could see me standing right there and wearing an X-men uniform – plus most folks on the space station had met me at least once by now – but that didn't stop them.

"Ewww, look at this," one of them said. "Looks like Alpha Flight wasn't the only group that harbors queers."

I flew the rest of the way to the conference room.

***

Bobby wasn't in the meeting room. I learned later on that as soon as they had seen the first poster, Cyclops had wanted to call the whole team together but the Professor had thought it might be easier on Bobby if he wasn't in this first discussion.

So I can tell you that Bobby wasn't there, and that first meeting passed in a blur. I ain't gonna write it all out right now, but here is what we talked about. First it was decided that someone had to talk to Bobby and find out what happened. The Professor reminded the team that we had to give people the benefit of the doubt. Lucky Hank was nominated for that job, since everyone knew that they were friends. It was hard to read the look on Hank's face.

Secondly, the Professor said he wanted to try to figure out how damaging this was going to be, before we decided upon our next course of action. But not everyone was sold on this idea, since our guts already told us that this was going to be about as bad as it gets. Apparently everyone had seen the posters on their way to the meeting room since it appeared that Cortez's group had littered the whole blasted space station with them. During the meeting Angel was in a corner with a computer, bringing up Cortez's webpage. It showed security camera footage of Bobby leaving Northstar's room in the early hours of the morning. If it was faked then they sure did a great job, but the problem was that none of us thought it was faked. So that tells you that most everyone else on Asteroid M was bound to believe it too.

So then they talked about how to handle damage control, since we could bet that this would be a big deal. The Professor wanted to first see what Bobby had to say and get an idea of how bad the problem would be, but most people wanted to figure out how to fix it right then and there.

And yeah, there were a lot of ugly words tossed out, a lot of insulting names used, and the Professor had to step in and tell folks to cool it and keep their heads and try to respect their fellow X-men. And honestly, I'd never before seen someone roll their eyes when Xavier spoke but one or two people did this time. But the Professor was able to convince the team to wait a little first until we had that other information, and then reconvene.

At least I had something to take my mind off of how terrible things were with Remy, I'd figured.

I wondered what Hank thought about all this. I couldn't read the look on his face, and he left as soon as he had his marching orders to get the scoop from Bobby.

Me, I felt sick in my gut. I felt shame because folks knew Bobby was kinda a friend of mine, and I also felt really afraid for what would happen to him – and what would happen to us in the election.

***

We were back in that meeting room not too much later to sit down and figure out what to do next. The Professor had come around and spoken to each one of us in between the meetings. He said that Bobby was going to be at this meeting since we all had to be there when we figured out our next steps. The Professor then said to me, "I know this won't be a problem for you, Rogue, but I am reminding everyone to be respectful during the meeting today."

I nodded. "You got it!" I said, and I was surprised that my voice sounded its usual spunky way, when I felt nothing but dread sitting in the pit of my stomach.

And before I turned away from the Professor, I took another gander at him. He was tired. He had Magneto's death weighing him down on top of the very real possibility that we were gonna walk away from this elections as the losers. Cortez in charge of a few thousand mutants eager for war means we're fighting both those mutants – our people, in a manner of speaking - and the combined forces of every major government on earth. Toss FOH into the mix since you can bet we'd be fighting them too. Xavier's worst nightmare was knocking on our doorstep.

Before the second meeting, I darted around the space station and talked to lots of folks. What Cortez had on his website was pretty damning. It made it right clear that Bobby left Northstar's room early this morning. As one mutant said to me, "What do you think they were doing in there – playing Checkers?"

This was pretty much all people were talking about. Seriously. No one had known that there was an X-man who was queer. Now it was clear that everyone on the station knew it.

I did see Hank just before the meeting. His eyes looked weary. "What does Bobby say?" I asked.

"He admits that he paid a visit to Northstar," Hank said. "He did not elaborate much more."

Cannonball was standing right by us and he piped up," What does it really matter if he tells us more or not? The whole station knows he was there!"

"That's true, son," Banshee said. "At this point everyone seems to have already made up their mind as to what the situation is."

Bobby shuffled into the meeting room just as we were all sitting down. I didn't want to look at him. From the glance I took I could tell that he looked like a man on his way to the firing squad.

The Professor called the meeting to order right away. The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He started out by saying, "We have a difficult situation on our hands and we must discuss it as a team. The facts are as follows. Cortez has found a new way to campaign against us with his latest series of posters. Bobby has told us that it is true that he paid a visit to Northstar this morning. We also know that this tactic of Cortez's appears to be working exactly as Cortez wants it to, with this being discussed widely on Asteroid M. Based on these facts, we need to decide how to proceed." The Professor's voice was calm and even, but also bone-weary.

Cyclops spoke first. "Unfortunately it's very true that Cortez's tactic looks like it's working. Since the posters and the stuff on Cortez's website went up, it's all people are talking about. And none of it looks good for us."

"Yeah," Wolverine added. "We were already lagging behind Cortez. The Inner Circle dropped out of the race earlier today. If the election was held now, he'd have this one in the bag. And we only got four more days"

"I agree," Angel said. "People have been saying the most vile and disturbing things about us because of this. It's utterly terrible."

Angel then shot Bobby a look, and before I go on I should say something else. I didn't know this at the time, but much later I found out that there was a reason that Angel hated Bobby so much. Seems that years ago, way back in the X-men's early days, there was an incident between the two of them taking place in the locker room. Apparently Bobby had snuck a glance where he shouldn't have, and Angel had noticed. Angel had hated Bobby ever since, but again I didn't know any of this at the time.

"It does appear that our situation is quite dire," Storm added. "Forge even asked if we want to consider dropping out of the race and having X-Factor run instead."

"No way!" Cyclops said, and he slapped a fist against his other hand. "We're the best team here to lead the mutants on this station! We're the only ones who've been working with the UN and with world governments. I'm not pulling out of the race! And I'm not letting this scandal stop us."

"Me neither," said Wolverine.

I felt the same way, and said so – and there were lots of nods and seconding of what Cyke and Wolverine said. X-Factor may be good, the team agreed, but we X-men are not pulling out of this election.

"Given that we agree that we need to stay in the running," the Professor said, "then we must discuss how to deal with this – situation."

The room was silent again. A few people shot looks over at Bobby.

Then Angel stood up. "May I address the group?" he asked. "I've been thinking about this a lot."

The Professor gave a nod, and again I noticed how tired Xavier looked.

Angel cleared his throat and started talking. "I want to first say that I'm not trying to insult anyone or attack anyone personally. But we have to face the facts here, and we also have to admit that sometimes we X-men are 'too nice,' so to speak."

Angel paused and then continued – he'd do a lot of pausing for emphasis. "What we're hearing out there about the visit that Bobby paid to Northstar – it isn't pretty and it reflects badly on all of us. We can't risk letting Cortez win. Forget about our own pride and our own belief that we are the best team to lead mutantkind. If Cortez wins, we'll have a disaster on our hands. We could be spending the next few years fighting an on-going war with Cortez and with non-mutants like FOH. And who wants that?

"We also have a few more facts to face. Although I have nothing against Bobby personally, we have to admit that his fighting skills have never been the strongest. Right now, having him as an X-man does reflect badly on all of us and it may very well keep us from winning this election."

Angel paused again and said, "I know that we all agree that prejudice of any kind is wrong - even though I think most of us are fairly...well, uncomfortable with Bobby's type of…difference. I know we're all tired of FOH propaganda that suggests that a lot of mutants are like that, and thus it doesn't make it any easier having an actual homosexual on our team.

"But at this point we have to think of the election, and the broader good of all mutantkind. It may be painful, but I think we need to ask Bobby to resign as an X-man."

I spent the duration of Angel's speech just looking at my gloves. It was hard to face what he said head-on like this but I guessed we had no choice. When he finished I looked up and saw plenty of folks nodding and showing their agreement.

There was silence for a little bit, other than the murmurings of agreement with Angel.

Cannonball spoke up next. He said, "I totally agree. In fact, Angel you're too nice. I honestly think we should've asked him to leave a long time ago."

Bold words, I thought, coming from one of our newest members.

Cannonball went on. "You gotta think of what's right and what's wrong. What on earth was Bobby thinking, going to visit Northstar and putting us all at risk with his actions? Those people," he looked at Bobby, "are known to get all sorts of diseases and I think it's God's punishment. It's just wrong, and we've been too nice all these years to ask him to leave."

The Professor spoke up, using just a few words, again sounding tired but also stern. "Cannonball. That's enough."

It surprised me, but Cannonball wasn't done yet. He said, looking at Xavier, "I'm sorry, Sir. But I'm just saying what most folks here are thinking."

Cannonball had always been such a sweet, gentle guy but I guess when it came to this he was different.

So at this point I snuck a glance at Bobby, as I think most folks were doing. Of course some weren't as subtle in their watching him. What can I say? He looked miserable and afraid, and I thought he might've even been trembling with fear but I wasn't sure if maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me instead.

Cyclops then looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone else have anything to say? Making sure to be respectful, of course."

The room was quiet for a spell. Then Storm spoke up. "What would we propose Bobby do? If he's being asked to leave, where would he go, especially given that there may very well be a war coming on?"

Cyclops said, "He can take a shuttle back down to earth. I'm sure we can arrange a small stipend or some other way to make sure he can get by-"

"I don't need money," Bobby said. I was shocked that he interrupted Cyclops. I wondered if he had a burst of adrenaline or something because he also stood up and continued, "I have some saved and I can find a job. I….I also just wanted to say that I'm sorry for causing you any trouble. I didn't choose to be this way. But I guess it doesn't matter now. I'm going to find when the next transport is back to earth. Goodbye."

With that, he got up and left. I knew that soon there was assorted chatter and discussion going on around me but I didn't listen. I just sat there realizing that this evening we had done something we'd never done before. We kicked an X-man off the team. Sure, he "chose" to resign but in effect we'd kicked one of our own out. If you'd told me a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed it.

I didn't think of it at that time, but looking back now I can say that I should've felt some sort of kinship with Bobby. Neither of us could have what we wanted, even if it was right there in front of us. But I am sorry to say that on that day, all I felt about the situation was relief that it was over.

***

The next day arrived too fast, and we were now down to three days before the election. We hit the ground running.

Even Gambit was up that morning, working on the campaign, though I avoided him of course. After the meetings of the day before, I had kept my distance, made sure we were nowhere near each other during dinner.

I didn't eat much – not at dinner the night before or breakfast this morning. My stomach and my heart were mushed together in some weird combination of intense pain over what had happened with Remy, anxiety over the election, and then you can stir in a bad feeling or two - maybe shame and regret - about everything with Bobby. Since I joined the X-men I always tried to stay positive, you know, but that morning for the first time in a long time I almost didn't want to get up. I had to drag myself out of bed.

That whole day, we were off doing the usual campaigning. Talking to people, making new posters, writing stuff for our website. Much of it, of course, was centered around damage control over what'd happened with Bobby. We made sure that people knew that Bobby – who had left on the last shuttle the evening before, it turns out – was no longer an X-man. But the damage really had been done, and people were saying the worst sort of stuff about us. A lot of folks wouldn't talk to us at all, and at the Professor's first speech of the day, the room was mostly empty. Maybe people figured they'd heard it all before and had already made up their minds on how they were gonna vote, but we knew – from what people told us –that a lot of this was due to people's reactions to what'd happened with Bobby.

When I was getting ready to leave the half-empty dining room after lunch, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. For a split second, I thought it might be Storm but it was Jean.

"Can we talk, Rogue?" she asked. She sat down in the empty chair next to me.

I shrugged. I love Jean, of course, she's like a sister to me. But I sure wasn't in the mood for talking much. I knew perfectly all of what was bothering me and didn't feel like re-hashing it.

"I ain't really in the mood to talk much," I admitted honestly.

Jean nodded. "It's just that I noticed you picking at your food, and that worries me a bit."

"I appreciate your concern, sugar. But I ain't sure that talking's gonna help me much. Guess I'm just not in the mood for it."

"Do you want to go to the rec room?" she asked. "I bet we could both use a break."

I looked around the dining room, I guess looking for Cyke or Xavier. "But there's so much to do"

"And we can't do it when we're exhausted," Jean said. Her voice really could be like honey sometimes. It was nice to listen to. I could always see why so many folks took to her. "I bet a break would do us both some good."

"Okay," I finally agreed. She did have a point. And besides, if I was gonna take a break and hang out with someone, the person I'd usually do it with was Remy - but he was off-limits for now. May as well take the offer of some company when it came my way.

So we made our way to the rec room. Walking through the corridors I noticed that most of the posters that we'd put up that very morning had been torn down. I made a motion, but Jean just said, "Later. It can wait."

"Yeah. And it'll just get torn down again," I added. Gotta admit I was pretty blue, guess it was no surprise that Jean sought me out.

"We might still win. You never know," Jean said.

I turned to face her and smiled. "You know, sugar, I appreciate your offer of taking a break more than you realize. How 'bout let's not talk about the election on our break?"

"That is a wonderful idea," Jean said, and smiled back.

She had such a beautiful smile, and I had to smile myself for a spell. I reminded myself that I wasn't the only one who had things hard. She and Scott wanted a baby real badly and weren't having any luck there.

So Jean and I got to the rec room. We played darts. Then we played a game of Scrabble, which took a good 45 minutes. We giggled a bit and said we felt like schoolgirls ditching school. I then glanced over at the large-screen TV, and it looked like a movie was starting up on it. There were a few seats left in front of the TV. I raised my eyebrows at Jean and we decided to head over there watch the movie too.

Not long into the movie, something interesting happened. I took a glance at Jean because there was a newborn baby in the movie and I hoped she was okay looking at it. But Jean wasn't watching the screen anymore.

Apparently Storm had entered the rec room. She was sitting on one of the sofas, and had a mug in her hand. What made this pretty interesting was that she wasn't alone. She had a guy with her and it wasn't Forge.

Wolverine. Storm and Wolverine were sitting together on the sofa together. And I mean together. He had his arm around her and she was cuddled up against him. They were talking or whispering. I've seen couples do that before, and all I can say is that they were curled together in the way of lovebirds. I had to blink a few times because I didn't believe my own eyes.

"Um…okaaaay," I whispered to Jean.

One of the other folks watching the movie shot me a dirty look – you were supposed to be quiet in the immediate area around the TV, and man the last thing we needed was to get charges of 'talking during the movie' thrown at the X-men too. So Jean and I exchanged a quick look and got up.

We didn't head near Storm and Wolverine, but honestly I don't think they would've noticed us if we'd walked right in front of them.

"Okay, now I really feel like a schoolgirl," Jean said, as we found a spot in the back of the rec room, away from the action. "What is going on there? I thought she and Forge were looking like they were going to start something up."

"I knew that both fellows were interested in her," I said. "But from the looks of things over there she's chosen Wolverine." I shook my head. "It's wrong to admit it, but I'm dyin' to know more!"

"Me too," Jean said. "But you're right – we shouldn't be gossiping about others."

"'Course not. We'll just have to grab Storm soon as we can and demand the whole story!"

Jean smiled again, and then she said, "Well, speaking of people's love lives….I just wanted to ask how you're doing. Are you okay?"

"I take it you know 'bout me and Remy?" I asked, and she nodded. Word traveled fast among us X-men. Didn't matter that we were busy with the election; we still knew what was going on with each other. That's pretty much always been the case.

I also have to admit that I still didn't want to discuss it. Appreciated Jean's concern but didn't see the point in talking about it since there was nothing Jean could do. So I wasn't the least bit upset when Jean's handheld buzzed and Cyclops asked if our break was over because they could use our help. So off we went. Whew!

***

The time in the rec room with Jean was the best part of that day, 'cause things kept sliding downhill. X-Factor didn't show up at our evening speech and we noticed that none of the members of their team were working on campaign stuff with us at all that day either. By dinner time we were all talking and comparing notes – seemed X-Factor folks had been snubbing us when passing us in the corridors, that sort of thing too.

"They probably don't want anything more to do with us because of what happened with Bobby," Banshee said, quietly. He was sitting near me.

"I'm not sure that's the only reason for their behavior," Moira said. She took a quick glance at the rest of the table. Maybe she was checking to see if Storm was there, because that was the next logical conclusion in my book.

"We won't know what's going on unless we talk with them," the Professor said. "I think I will seek Forge out after dinner."

"Care for some company?" I asked on the spur of the moment. I was looking for something else to keep my mind occupied that evening. Avoiding Gambit – who was sitting at the other end of the dinner table – and trying not to think about him weren't easy. So I sure welcomed any sort of distraction at this point.

"Of course."

The Professor must've been eager to get this settled, because he sent Forge a message during dinner and finished the rest of his meal quickly. Small things like that seemed odd to me – having been raised a gentleman and all, the Professor wasn't one to scarf down his food like it was a race – but I reminded myself again that the Professor wasn't exactly himself lately with everything that had been going on. Magneto's death was bad enough, but you add in that we're at the brink of a war and also that I don't think he was happy about what happened with Bobby.

Forge agreed to meet us in the observation lounge. The room was beautiful but it wasn't our first choice seeing as there is no privacy in there. It's a nice, wide-open space with these stunning views of the stars. You could lose yourself, sitting on one of the many sofas and chairs, and just staring up at the blackness of the space, the bright stars, and feeling small among all of it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced a couple off in a corner, cuddled up together and just looking at the view. I guessed that pangs of jealousy and sadness would be with my all my life. In my head, I hoped Remy would be up here any day now with a girl, even though the thought made my heart drop to the floor.

We found an empty couch, and I sat next to Forge with the Professor facing us in his wheelchair. Forge was back to being like the Forge I'd known – down to business and straightforward. Unsmiling too.

"I believe that both of our groups share the same goal," the Professor began. "We both want mutants and regular humans to work together peacefully."

His voice was slightly hoarse as he spoke. The man had been campaigning for days and I had to say it almost sounded to me like he was starting one of his speeches. But then again, speeches from him, Cyclops, and Storm were at least of half of what I'd heard and read the past four days.

He went on, "Am I correct in this assumption?"

Forge looked directly at the Professor. Like I said, he was down to business and he didn't have an expression that you could easily read. The man had never exactly conveyed warmth in my book, and right now I felt ice coming from him.

"You are," Forge said. "And I imagine you're wanting to know why we haven't campaigned with you today."

"And why some of your people have been snubbing ours in the halls, acting like we got the plague," I added in. The Professor subtly looked at me, and I kinda regretted saying it a second later since it sounded childish. But then I also felt it needed to be pointed out.

"I think the truth is that we're tired and we're not very motivated," Forge said. "It looks like Cortez is going to win this election. I'm not saying that we're giving up but my people do need a break."

"The election is in three days. We're all tired, but we have to keep the broader goal in mind. You and your team had been so good at campaigning. Can you encourage them to hold out for just a few more days and get back on the campaign trail?"

"I could," Forge admitted. "Though I have to admit that I'm not very motivated either."

"Can you share with us why? Do you truly believe it's hopeless?"

"At this point, I think it might be. Like I said, it looks like Cortez is going to win."

Forge's eyes were drifting towards the door. He shifted in his seat and looked very impatient to get our meeting over with. Maybe I got hit with a burst of impatience too. Maybe everything had pushed me too much the past few days.

"He will if we don't even try to prevent it," I said, and my voice was back to what my Daddy used to call 'sharp-tongued.' "Is X-Factor really feeling hopeless or are you mad at us for some other reason?"

Forge crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, Rogue, truth be told, there are other reasons as well. The debacle with Bobby certainly hasn't helped things. We're not prejudiced, but this doesn't speak well about the X-men's moral character. Though we give you credit for removing him as fast as you did." He took a breath and added, "Lorna used to go out with Bobby, years ago. She's pretty upset about being made to look like someone's 'cover' all those years ago. In fact, I think she's been saying some bad things about you guys today."

And then, I swear I couldn't have planned this myself but I saw Forge take yet another glance at the door. I turned my head. Storm and Wolverine were there, holding hands. I guess they finally realized Forge was there (maybe Wolverine should've caught it earlier given his way of sniffing people out, but the fool was probably love-numbed), because they turned and left.

"Is that what this is really about?" I asked. "Are you mad that Storm picked Wolverine instead of you?"

The Professor touched his hand to my arm, and I knew I really had crossed the line. I felt bad. I mean, we weren't getting anywhere with Forge and I was pretty frustrated, but I still had put my foot in my dang mouth.

"We don't mean to accuse you or your team of being petty," the Professor said. "We just ask that you keep our larger goals in mind, our vision for the future of humanity."

But Forge had had enough and I can't say I blame him. He abruptly stood up. "I'll keep that in mind. Professor. Rogue."

He nodded curtly at us and left.

"I'm sorry, Professor," I said, once I was sure Forge was out of earshot. My voice was glum as I felt. "I shouldn't have said that. I came on too strong and said too much."

The Professor didn't rebuke me. Honest, in all the years I've worked with him, he never was harsh with me – even in the early years when I really deserved it.

"Perhaps when Forge calms down, he will realize that there was some truth in what you said, and he needs to put that aside. It's all we can hope for."

I nodded. "But Storm sure picked a bad time to go for Wolverine over Forge."

The Professor gave a slight smile, for a second. "That may be so, but we certainly can't dictate our members' love lives." He took a breath and then asked, "I've been meaning to ask you, Rogue – how are you?"

I smiled sweetly. "Well, Professor, I was just about to ask you the same thing. I guess things aren't easy for anyone right about now."

We exchanged a look, and that's one thing I loved about the Professor. We communicated somehow that neither of us wanted to talk about it, but that we both appreciated the other's concern. That was satisfying to me.

***

I worked on the campaign well into that night, and got up fairly early the next day to continue. I talked to anyone who would listen. I responded to comments on Cortez's campaign page. Dazzler was gonna give a concert again, so I helped get the word out. As for the concert itself, sure we were grasping for straws at this point; people did love music and we weren't gonna be all in your face that this came from the X-men. But we'd have a few posters up so maybe we could subtly reel 'em in during the show.

Although I didn't usually deliver speeches – after all, the Professor, Cyke, and Storm were our leaders – I was asked to do one later that day. Maybe they thought my down-home Southern charm would appeal. Honestly, I do think I came across as warmer than the others and I had to smile inside at the compliment.

I pushed the Remy situation to the back of my head. When thoughts about him started to bubble up, I told myself that I didn't have time to think about this and it would all pass. Maybe I'd half-convinced myself that was true. Until what happened in the gym.

I'd gone to the gym to work on one of the cardio machines. It was always good for blowing off some steam, and I needed it. So I worked away on it.

I was determine to stay positive that day, but as I exercised the thoughts kept bubbling up and not all of them were as positive as I'd wanted. I had to notice how great this gym was. Clean and classy, and it had great music pumping in. Cortez made all this sort of stuff on the station available to any mutant who wanted it, and all they had to do if they couldn't pay was sign up for some reasonable work shifts. Some folks I talked to said they were worried that if the X-men were elected, we'd dismantle the space station seeing as how the UN and the super powers of the world didn't like it. They told us they were worried we'd send them all packing, back to the lonely lives they had before, where most of them were struggling to get by. "After all," one of them told me, "it's not like you ever let us in that mansion of yours and opened the doors there, the way Cortez did here."

I'd had my retort ready to go and I delivered it (I hadn't had a dollar to my name when Xavier found me), but I could also tell it would fall in deaf ears. The guy wasn't gonna listen to me.

All that made my mood low again, and when I looked up once more I saw Remy here in the gym. With a woman I didn't recognize.

She was beautiful. She reminded me of that Belladonna character, the girl he almost married so long ago. I hadn't laid eyes on her in years but I remembered her well. This girl today had the same beautiful blond hair and sparkling eyes. Couldn't tell what her mutation was by looking at her but she was stunning on the outside.

The two of them headed towards a weight bench and looked like they were going to lift weights together. All these thoughts and ideas buzzed around in my head and I couldn't stop them. The gym wasn't a logical place for a date, but then again you never knew. Who was she? Was he interested in her? Of course he was interested in her; I doubt he was campaigning. And heavens above, of course she had to be interested in him! Who wouldn't be? Then I reminded myself that this was exactly what I'd told Remy to go and do. I also reminded myself that I'd known full well I wouldn't like it. Then I guessed that no matter how much I knew it in my head, nothing was gonna stop my heart from dropping down even lower.

If Remy knew I was in the gym, he gave no sign of it. That alone told me he had to be interested in her. He used to have like a sixth sense of knowing where I was.

The green-eyed monster was even more painful than I could ever have dreamed. No matter how many times I reminded myself that this was – like I said – exactly what I told Remy to go and do, I was jealous. Gut-ripping, painful jealous. I didn't want to be in this much pain, but I didn't exactly have an alternative either and that just made me want to jump out of my skin. I guess I could see why some folks drowned themselves in booze. I'd never do that, but I knew that it could take away the pain for a while.

I slipped out of the gym. Again I don't think Remy noticed me at all.

Just as I made up mind to go to my room so I could go over the speech I was gonna give later that day, Storm beeped me. She asked if I wanted to rehearse my speech.

"Girl, what happened here – did you get Jean's powers for a minute? I was just headin' to my room to practice it!"

I said it with a laugh, but I think Storm heard something in my voice because she met me inside my room in a flash. I was about to ask her if she'd developed Nightcrawler's powers too but I had to stop. My voice was getting wobbly like it had during that awful discussion with Gambit, and I had to zip it if I didn't want to start bawling again. Didn't fancy the idea of breaking down in tears again.

I guess Storm just took one look at my face. She hugged me. I managed to mutter at her to be careful not to let my face touch any parts of her skin. She hugged me tighter after I said that.

But I did myself proud. I got a hold of myself. I got a hold of my emotions. When my voice was steady, I broke away from the hug. "I'm okay," I said. "Really."

"Do you wish to talk about it?"

A wicked thought popped into my head. I most assuredly did not want to talk about it….but I could kill two birds with one stone by milking Storm's sympathy: I could take my mind off of Remy and get Storm to spill the beans!

"No," I said, sounding like my old self even if I sure didn't feel like her. "But you gotta tell me, sugar. What's the story with you and Wolverine? Are you a couple now? Did you kiss?"

Storm looked both bemused and sympathetic. I'm sure that she was fully aware of my game, but she kindly let me play.

"Well," she began as she sat down in the chair. I sat across from her on the bed. "I suppose you could say we're going to see where this goes. I'm optimistic about it."

She's always so blasted reserved. But I was gonna play the sympathy card for all it was worth. "Spill the beans, sugar! How did it happen? And I ask again - have you kissed yet?"

Storm gave me the look that she has given me many times before to show that she is going to indulge me. "Yes, we have kissed. Wolverine did approach me first, though it's hard to say exactly when. Time on Asteroid M seems to be its own animal. Sometimes I feel like we've been here for months, other times I feel like we just arrived. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, but don't change the subject. So Wolverine approached you? And you lost interest in Forge?"

Storm looked down at her hands. "I understand that this has caused strife between us and X-Factor. I've spoken about it with the Professor. I really and truly never intended to cause Forge any anguish. I did have a sincere interest in him. It was just that when Wolverine expressed his interest in me, I realized that Wolverine was the man I had truly always wanted. Not Forge."

I was smiling now. "I thought this day might never come. You and the Canadian are so stubborn. But I really think you could make something work."

"I do too. We – we went to see Jubilee to let her know. Because of the roles we've played in Jubilee's life, we wanted to do her the honor of telling her. I believe she's happy for us."

Storm didn't sound as solid in that last statement as I would've thought. "You sure? Sometimes I kinda wondered if she had a crush on him. And she's older now, so you never know where that crush – if it was there – could've gone."

"I remember asking Jubilee about it years ago, but she'd told me she didn't have a crush on him. I believed her then and I think it is still true. We reassured her that she wouldn't be losing her Uncle-like figure."

"Well, that's good."

Storm smiled and spread her hands. "Well, now that I have opened up to you – as the Professor might say – I do want to again ask if you'd like to talk. I would be glad to listen. I would also encourage you to speak with Gambit and to perhaps reconsider your decision."

I didn't allow her to say anything else. "Oh dear, look at the time! Storm, we gotta get goin' on my rehearsing if there's any chance I'll be ready in time."

"Are you certain we don't have time to discuss Remy and your–"

"Sugar, I'm positive."

I knew Storm wouldn't press it beyond that, and she didn't. She nodded, and we set to our work.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Didn't see Remy that day. I gave my speech like it was all in a day's work and I tried not to scan the room to see if he was there. Wasn't sure which would be worse – him being there with the blonde and me getting flustered at seeing them, or him not being there at all. When I looked, I didn't see him but I told myself that maybe he might have been in the back of the room.

I saw Beast just once that day. I'm not sure when, maybe it was some point after my speech. I remember thinking that we hadn't talked much lately. I also remember thinking when I saw him that he looked terrible but I guess I was too wrapped up in everything with Remy to give it much thought. I can't recall if I had an inkling back then that Bobby's disgrace and departure were bothering him more than I'd reckoned; they had been friends and all, but I myself was still feeling more embarrassed than anything about having been the Iceman's friend. So maybe I figured that everyone was feeling that too, instead of being down about his departure for another reason. I did mention that I was raised strict Southern Baptist, right?

Had to decide if I wanted to go to Dazzler's concert that evening, after my speech. I thought it might be a good way to take my mind off of Remy, but I also thought that he'd probably be there with the girl. Plus I had a ton of campaign work to do. I deliberated for a while, but Jubilee beeped me a few times asking if I was going, and when I saw Jean and Scott after my speech they asked if I'd be there too.

So I figured 'why not?' 'Sides, Dazzler had a great voice and I honestly liked her music. I can like music other than country music, you know. One section of the assembly hall had been cordoned off as a dance floor, the other section had chairs. There was booze there too, which I definitely decided to sample. There were bright lights, and Dazzler's music was right on too. I slumped down into one of the chairs, alongside Cannonball, Jubilee, and Colossus. Jean and Scott sat in the row behind us. The younger three got up to dance at one point, and I didn't want to look like a bump on a log so I joined them. Guess I needed it to get rid of my stress because the music itself and the feel of dancing to it all made me feel pretty good.

Then I about fainted when I saw Storm and Wolverine on the dance floor. Had to blink a few times but they were still there. Didn't know whether to laugh or shout, but the two damn fools looked so happy that I almost had to be as well.

Somehow I just sensed when Remy entered the room. I turned my head and saw him by the entrance. He was alone. He looked god-awful amazing. Like I wanted to run up to him and hug him and kiss him and tear his clothes off. He looked confident and sexy, and even something about the way he just walked across the floor got my heart pumping. His eyes had that thrilling look they do in the dark. He just was some sort of amazing being and I almost felt like he was a magnet I couldn't get away from.

Then I cursed quietly – no one could hear it over the music thankfully. I figured that I was honest to goodness cursed by God above. Bad enough not being able to touch anyone, worse when you fall for a man like Remy who you love and you can't really ever get away from. Even if I left the X-men I knew I'd never be able to get away from my feelings for him, and thanks to my powers I'd never be able to do anything about it either. Wondered if I'd ever learn to just accept and deal with my lot in life. I was doing a mighty bad failure of it all now.

And then my heart flopped around like a fish out of water, because Remy was heading right over towards me. I had to fight the impulse to get into the air and just fly away.

"Care to dance, chere?"

"I told you, Swamp Rat," I began. My voice was harsh, partly because I had to get above the loud music. "We gotta keep away from each other." And then the words came out before I could stop them, though I had to silently curse myself – again - afterwards. "Where's the blonde?"

Remy shrugged. "Don't know, but I'd rather be with you."

"Too bad. I think you should go out and find her."

I retreated back to the chairs, where Scott and Jean were sitting. Jean put a hand on my shoulder and asked if I wanted to talk. This wasn't exactly the place for it and I shook my head.

I gotta give Remy credit. He left me alone for the rest of the evening.

***

The next day was another full day and I got up early again. The election was coming up quick as a wink - the day after tomorrow! I started working on the campaign right away, feeling a tad guilty for taking yesterday night off to go to the concert even though word was that the Professor had encouraged everyone to go and enjoy it.

But now it was back to the grind. That day, and the next one, passed in a whirlwind of campaigning. I really was starting to lose my voice from doing so much talking, and so was half the team.

No matter how much we tore them down, Cortez's infamous "Bobby" posters kept coming back up. Some of the folks I spoke with said they weren't voting for us because we'd had Bobby on our team. Some said that they wouldn't hold it against us since we kicked him out. Some said it didn't matter to them one way or the other. Most folks who I spoke with didn't bring it up, though. We did everything we could to get it behind us and get it forgotten.

Folks on Asteroid M were excited about what would happen after the election. Cortez's supporters had informal marches through the corridors. They carried signs and had the strangest stuff written on their shirts, and on signs that they displayed on their bedroom doors. Bottom line – they couldn't wait for a war. Lots of them couldn't wait to get rid of regular humans, couldn't wait to attack them. It was sad. Maybe after being kicked around all their lives, they had to dish it back to others. Maybe they thought it would bring them glory and excitement. Maybe they just didn't have any other direction to their lives. Maybe they thought that the X-men's way meant a lot of work and in some way they were almost right on that one. Cortez offered them something easier, at least that's where I think they were coming from.

I tried to reason with them. I tried to share my own experience, that wars and battles ain't pretty, that people get hurt and die. I tried to not shake a bit when I saw how many Cortez supporters there were and how much anger they had.

At least members of X-Factor were more polite to us. We didn't officially reconcile with them, and Forge may as well have been made of stone the few times I glimpsed him, but I know X-Factor's members had to have realized that getting Cortez elected would be a God-awful disaster. So plenty of them were good to us, doing things like leaving good comments on our webpage and working alongside us on putting up posters. Hitting the pavement and talking to voters on our behalf too.

I know Xavier spent a good measure of time those last two days talking to the President of the US and to UN representatives. He kept reassuring them that the X-men would do everything in our power to avoid a war. They asked us what we thought the results of the election would be and I'm sorry to say that we couldn't encourage them much. Xavier would always be honest and not misleading; besides, what would've been the point of not telling the truth?

Didn't hardly interact with Remy those last two days, and didn't see the blonde. I spent those final days before the election talking to anyone who'd listen, writing on our website, texting people answers to questions, and clapping at speeches even though my teammates' voices were as hoarse as mine.

The next day would be the election. Polls were going to be open from 1000 hours until 1500 hours. That would easily give everyone a chance to vote, and allow enough time for us to know the winner before too late in the day.

***

Didn't dream much the night before election day and got up bright and early. This would be it. I got a message during the night that said we're gonna have a meeting right after the election results were determined, so we could discuss our next steps. I threw my tired and achy body in the shower and wondered if the Professor or Cyclops was working on a concession speech.

The shower provided plenty of steam and heat, but it wasn't enough and I knew there was something I needed. I might've been strong but I wasn't completely invulnerable either, not after a week like this one. So I got dressed and went straight for the infirmary. My throat had been bad all week and I was gonna need some cough drops if I was gonna make it through another grueling day. Had a feeling this would be a long day too.

I walked into the infirmary and found myself walking right into a thunderstorm. Beast and Cyclops were in there, and they were arguing something fierce. In fact, I don't think they even noticed my entrance.

"You can't be serious about this!" Cyclops said. "The election is today!"

"I know that," Beast replied. He sounded more calm than Cyke, but really intense.

I knew that etiquette required that I turn around and come back later. But I stayed right where I was. I had to see what was causing the intense and determined look on Hank's face, and the anger on Cyclops's.

"What we did was wrong," Hank continued, and he sounded grave. "We already know what the result of the election will be. A war is going to follow, possibly one of epic proportions. The entire world might be drawn into this. I do not even know where Bobby is, but wherever he is, he requires our protection!"

Cyclops let out a breath. "Look, Hank, I don't want Bobby – or any human being, for that matter – to be hurt. But he's only one person. We need you here." Cyclops spoke that last sentence with about as much intensity and emphasis as you could imagine. Then he went on, "You can do the most good for Bobby, and for the rest of the human population, by being here and helping us win the war that's coming. And besides, I don't know if anyone is happy about how the situation with Bobby ended, but he did show quite a bit of bad judgment."

Hank shook his head. "That is beside the point. I still can't believe the dismissive manner with which we treated one of our own."

"It's over and done with. And Bobby's not exactly helpless either. When he actually applies himself, he's pretty powerful – I think he can survive whatever the war will bring. He'll manage. But we need you here."

"I cannot accept the actions we have taken – and the idea that everything will turn out well – quite so easily." His voice was a bit softer though, and I started to wonder if Cyclops had won.

Cyclops heard the same thing, I reckon, since he moved closer to Hank and put a hand on his shoulder. "These are really hard times for everyone. But please stay here. At least for the next few days. Maybe we can avert a war. And if we can't, maybe we can keep it from being one of – as you put it – epic proportions. But at least please stay here for the next few days."

Hank nodded. "I agree to your request. But depending on the turn of events after the next few days, I cannot promise that I won't be compelled to find Bobby and ensure he is managing sufficiently well without us. We were the only family he had."

It was quiet for a spell, with Hank's last words hanging in the air. Since the two guys had calmed down, they just kinda turned and noticed me. We exchanged a few somewhat awkward hellos.

"I-I came here for cough drops," I managed.

"I will procure them for you," Hank said.

As he turned for one of the cabinets, Cyclops's handheld beeped, and he was off after a quick 'good morning' in my direction. I wanted to talk to Beast for a bit – didn't know quite what I'd say, but I wanted to talk. But as soon as he handed me the package, someone entered the infirmary with a sprained ankle and Beast was occupied. My handheld was making all sorts of noises already, so I scrambled to my next assignment.

***

Many of us got assigned to work as poll watchers and vote counters. Asteroid M had three different polling stations, and I got to the one I was assigned well before the polls opened. Banshee and Nightcrawler soon got there too.

A few folks made some snide comments, asking if X-men were there to "intimidate" people into voting for them.

Honestly, at that point I told myself that I didn't care about stupid comments like that – but I did. In fact, I nearly wanted to cry. We'd done so much for other mutants over the years – heck, we'd done so much for humanity over the years. Never once did any of us do anything on Asteroid M that could've been seen as remotely intimidating to anyone, but here we were getting stupid accusations thrown in our face even though it made no sense and wasn't based on one scrap of fact. You had to admit that it was enough to make you want to throw in the towel.

Voting on Asteroid M went swift and smoothly though. Although I figured that a lot of people were up late the night before, the polling stations were filling up early. By the time we were relieved of our poll watching duties at 1300 hours, the lines at all the stations had dwindled and we were told that by our estimates, almost all of the space station inhabitants had voted.

Remy was one of the X-men who came to relieve us. I didn't acknowledge him or look at him, and I hightailed it outta there, leaving Banshee and Nightcrawler fill him in on the particulars of our shift.

***

I don't have to tell you how the vote turned out, do I? The Professor, Storm, and Cyclops were there when the votes were counted, supervising the process. Apparently Cortez didn't need to cheat. He won with 68.7% of the vote.

By the time we all got to our assembly room to figure out what we'd do next, half the space station's inhabitants were beating the drum for war. Literally. My hand to God, some folks were literally parading around the corridors – banging on a drum – and demanding that we bring down all non-mutants, under Cortez's leadership.

When we closed the door to our meeting room, we could still hear all the noise and commotion outside. If I hadn't been so tired, I think my heart would've been thumping.

Beast was the last one to enter the meeting, and he got there a split second before we started talking.

"I can't believe we lost," Jubilee said. "We're so much better than Cortez and his jerks!"

"Won't be long before Cortez leads these people back down to earth and launches an attack," Wolverine said.

"That may be so," the Professor said. "But we still need to carefully think through our next move."

"Is it worth it to try to reason with Cortez?" Storm asked. "We could perhaps try to convince him of the futility of a war."

"I don't think so," I said. I crossed my arms over my chest. "Cortez's is gonna say that his election is a mandate and that mutantkind voted for a war. Besides, we tried to talk to him before."

"Ain't no use trying to reason with him," Wolverine said, and I was maybe a hair surprised that he agreed with me and not his new sweetheart.

"I must agree," the Professor said. "As Rogue said, I spoke with him a few times during the campaign and he is quite…resolute."

"Did we notify the President yet?" Cyclops asked. "And the UN?"

"Yes," the Professor said. "I just sent them a message with the election outcome. They want to know if we plan to attack Cortez and his supporters now."

Jean spoke up. "Is that the right thing to do? He was elected fair and square. I'm not sure a preemptive strike is quite the right thing to do."

"It does seem too aggressive to attack him right now," Cyclops said. "He hasn't done anything yet."

And then it couldn't have been timed better if it'd been planned. An explosion sounded right on the door, and several of us were thrown back away from it. A huge hole now stood where the door was, and Cortez's people rushed into the room – with their guns and every other weapon blazing.

***

We fought back. Cortez might have had more numbers but we X-men had more experience fighting – and winning – battles.

I leapt into the air, grabbing one of the conference room tables in one hand, and flung it at our attackers.

Then I scanned the room for Remy. He was already charging cards and aiming them at Cortez's people. He looked fine, so I scanned the room for my next targets.

It's kinda weird how battle fighting goes. Sometimes it feels like it all happens within the blink of an eye, other times everything moves slowly and you feel like you're trying to make your way through mud. Sometimes it's all react and reflex, and sometimes you gotta think about every move.

For some reason, in this fight I did more thinking than reacting. We'd been so busy campaigning that there was one thing we hadn't done much of: learn about Cortez's people and what their powers were. There was one mutant on his team who expelled from her mouth this substance that was pink and gooey. It came outta her in the form of a giant bubble which floated across the room – yeah, almost like bubble gum. I saw her hurl a bunch of it at Angel and Psylocke and nearly laughed at how they got coated with what looked like something very sticky and very annoying.

Then I felt right ashamed of myself. They were on my team after all, you gotta be loyal to your people. I flew up to her, popped her one, and she was down for the rest of the fight. And Angel and Psylocke were none the worse for wear.

Turned my attention back to Remy. That was one flaw we X-men had, you know. When you actually care about the people on your team, sometimes you get distracted and you focus too much on the warriors and not enough on the war, so to speak.

But we were usually so much better than anyone else we find ourselves in battle with, that we more than made up for this weakness. And I looked again and saw that Remy was more than holding his own – like he always does. The fool doesn't need me watching over him.

"To the Blackbird!" You could hear the Professor's voice over all the noise of the battle.

He was right, of course. It was being made pretty clear that our hosts on Asteroid M weren't going to be hospitable to us anymore and we were gonna have to go back to the mansion and our old base of operations. We couldn't very well stay here.

We fought back Cortez's people and made our way to the shuttle bay. I saw Banshee flying and carrying Moira down the corridor – of course you could've heard him from a mile away too. I saw Jubilee struck down for a second but before I could help she bounced right back and took out her opponent with her pyrotechnics.

One of Cortez's people had this power where it appeared that he released lots of tiny, sharp-toothed animal-looking things. For a second they were biting away at Nightcrawler – he'd have injuries, I figured – but he teleported away and Colossus stomped a few of the creatures before Storm froze them all over with ice and snow.

Speaking of teleporting, Nightcrawler started teleporting as many of us to the shuttle bay as he could. It only took a few seconds – we'd done plenty of drills like this before in the Danger Room. So we made it to the Blackbird pretty quickly.

Like I said, I did some thinking during this battle. I wondered about what I was gonna have to leave on the space station. Before I'd left the mansion, I'd brought with me the lacquered box where I kept the love letters and other trinkets that Remy's given me. I also brought the emerald bracelet he gave me. I quietly cursed myself for bringing them since I was gonna lose them now.

But I'd memorized every item that was in that box, every word he'd written on every card. Every ticket stub from every show we'd been to. To this day, I can tell you exactly what was there. Foolish of me to have brung them all to Asteroid M, but nothing that I couldn't recreate in my head either.

Then I had to remind myself that it was a good thing that I was losing these items – had to remind myself that Remy wasn't mine, that he was gonna easily find another girl and fall in love with her and that was what I really wanted since I couldn't ever be his wife. So I felt good that we were leaving Asteroid M and most of the sentimental things Remy had given me over the years would be gone. It was painful but it was right.

Though during that battle, I of course noted that there was no sign of the blonde I'd seen Remy with, so I didn't know if that was a harmless flirtation or if there'd been something between them. Was he gonna go back and get her? Then I reminded myself to stop even thinking about that.

So, back to the battle. Like I said, Nightcrawler did a fine job of teleporting us to the Blackbird and fast. We piled on, quick as a wink, and took off. Beast was in the pilot's seat.

Of course they weren't going to open the shuttle bay doors for us. But the Blackbird just blasted through them, leaving just shards and other remains in their place. We were off of Asteroid M.

I'd later learn that Beast had had a reason for being almost late to our meeting. He'd been checking out the Blackbird, making sure it hadn't been sabotaged and making sure all its weapons were online. Maybe Cortez wanted us out since the Blackbird was fine. Or maybe he'd been too stupid to think about sabotaging the Blackbird.

A whole passel of things happened next. Jean ran scans on all of us to make sure none of us had somehow been hit with any sort of homing device during the battle. Hank handed over the controls of the Blackbird to Storm, so that he could check us over for injuries. There were some scrapes and bruises but nothing serious, thank heavens. The Professor got in touch with the White House. Cyclops got in touch with X-Factor, Alpha Flight, and the Morlocks. The first two groups evacuated Asteroid M right after we did. The Morlocks were staying and insisted they were safe there. Turned out the White House wanted to meet with the Professor right away, so we ended up dropping him and Storm off there, while the rest of us went back to the mansion.

***

I'd fought in a lot of battles during my years in the X-men. But a war is an entirely different affair than a battle, as I was soon to find out. Battles were fast, they pumped you full of adrenaline, they were over in what usually felt like the blink of an eye, and we got a charge when we won as we 'most always did.

But a war was something else entirely. A war goes on a lot longer, you gotta fight battle fatigue constantly, you gotta find a new way to get motivated to fight every day, and you gotta accept that innocent people are gonna die.

I woke up one morning, glanced at the calendar, asked Jean to confirm it – and learned that we'd been at war with Cortez for a matter of only a few weeks. It felt like a year had gone by.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, so sit back while I tell you more.

We didn't waste any time doing all those things I'd mentioned – talking to the White House and the UN, gearing up our own defense plans, finding out what our mutant allies were gonna do – but Cortez sure didn't waste any time either.

Xavier had barely returned from the While House before Asteroid M began firing on Genosha, which had been evacuated of mutants. Asteroid M also issued a formal declaration of war – Cortez must've gone to writing school during that time since we'd seen him last – stating that "Mutantkind opposes all non-mutant humans who do not recognize our superiority. We will destroy bastions of mutant-hatred such as Genosha, and all who oppose us will be vanquished." Good god. If I'd ever mourned Magneto, it was that day because at least he'd been an enemy who the team had almost respected.

"People are gonna hate us even more than they did before!" Wolverine said when we got a hold of Cortez's statement, slamming his fist into the wall. I had to agree with him and fight my own temptation to break something.

The White House was on the line with us an instant after Cortez's declaration was received, and the President himself was demanding to know, "What does Cortez want?"

After spending all those days up there on Asteroid M, we were forced to admit that we didn't quite know what he wanted, other than power in general, tinged with vengeance on places like Genosha that had attacked mutants. And probably a world where mutants (but mostly just Cortez) were in control of everything.

The President then demanded that we stop Cortez, and Xavier had to remind him that we had already promised to do so. They planned out the logistics of it all – we'd get US troops backing us, and the UN was also on the line promising troops but also demanding that we bring Cortez down.

They were afraid. They saw how powerful Cortez was, saw that he had a thousand powerful mutants behind him, and that he seemed impossible to reason with. But we also knew that these world powers themselves had no love for mutants, so it was weird to be teaming up with them and having them make demands on us.

"Ain't it what we got comin' to us though?" I asked glumly, when a few of us took a few minutes to talk about it. "I mean we tried to beat Cortez and failed. Ain't a surprise that we're bein' told what to do by the world powers."

"Don't mean I gotta like it," Wolverine growled.

Then Cyclops came in and told us we had to get going. We had an idea of the location of Cortez's next attack and we had to be there.

***

 

And that's how it was, day after day. We used every trick up our sleeve to suss out his next move, and we'd try to counter it. Cortez would drop bombs on an FOH building and we'd be there to bring down his aircraft. Innocent civilians would get killed left and right, and we'd be there to clean up the mess. At the very least we'd be there to help the Red Cross and the other emergency aid workers to get through to the injured. We'd plot and plan how to bring Asteroid M down, but would end up fighting so many defensive battles that it made figuring the next move hard. The Blackbird nearly got shot down the first time we went back up in space, which set us back. The US and other world powers had shuttles that could go into space but they were slow as molasses and didn't have the weaponry we needed to fight back against Cortez.

We really had a two-front war on our hands. We fought against Cortez but FOH had also jumped into the fray. They had tons of new members in their ranks, people who were angry at the "mutant war" and all the chaos it caused. So while we tried to defend normal humans against Cortez, we had to defend ourselves and any other mutants against FOH. That kept us from making any headway, the fact that we always had one enemy or another after us, one battle or another to fight. Only upon very rare occasions did we get lucky and find FOH and Cortez's people locked in battle with each other. Usually it was us X-men fighting both of them, which was draining our resources and our energies. I figured I now knew what was meant by a 'war of attrition'.

I saw Remy all the time – saw all the X-men all the time – but none of us ever spoke anymore about anything other than the war. There was no time. I never quite knew when I'd eat my next meal, how much sleep I'd get, or heck even when I'd shower next – you just fought as long and as hard as you could. So I didn't have time to think about things with Remy.

But that didn't mean that I could steer clear of this all the time either. In one battle, Dazzler got injured. It was bad and just looking at her I didn't know if she was gonna survive. Remy and I ended up in the ambulance taking her to the nearest hospital (the Blackbird was being used in another mission, and Nightcrawler was fighting a battle elsewhere so Dazzler couldn't be teleported).

"Chere, we gotta talk," Remy said. His voice had this desperate, passionate tone to it and it made my heart jump. The war was making me kinda numb all over, and it was jarring to think how much Remy could make me turn to mush all over.

"Not now," I said, trying not to look at him and pretending to fuss over the unconscious Dazzler.

"Den when? Look at her! She might not even make it! We got life and death on our hands and dat means we gotta reconcile. Not talkin' to you is killin' Gambit!"

Did his words sound over the top? Maybe, but with a war going on he was right – everything looked more urgent, more serious. Next time Dazzler might not be the only X-man layin' here like this.

But his words and his tone were also opening up my heart and making it feel red and bloody and defenseless, and like I said – the numbness was a good thing durin' war.

"We can't," I managed to say. Couldn't put the words together to say more. I pulled myself together enough to add, "We can't be together, and ain't no time for that sorta stuff nowadays anyway."

Gambit knelt next to me, by Dazzler's stretcher. He put his hand on my arm. "Love be what make dis world go 'round. Don't matter if a war be on and we be fighting it. We still need each other. We still love each other."

I almost crumpled then, almost fell right into his arms but I was stronger than that. I looked at Dazzler, not at Remy. "You can have love, Remy. I told you. I want you to find someone else. Don't wait for the war to end. Find what you need now."

"What I need is you."

I tried not to hear those words, tried not to think about them. And then fortunately the ambulance driver came to my rescue.

"We're here!" he called out. "Help me unload her."

We scrambled out of the vehicle and I gently lifted Dazzler's stretcher. I'd kinda hoped we'd be met by people rushing to take her inside but no one was there. So we brought her inside.

The emergency room was packed. People milled around everywhere. There were moans of pain and smells of blood and decay. I heard Gambit say to the driver, "Dis the best hospital you can find?"

"Look, they're all like this!" the driver shot back. "They're all full."

"Looks like it could be hours before she gets treated!"

"Yeah, well things were pretty bad before the war, but thanks to you mutants and your war, things are a lot worse now. Every hospital around here is practically broke – out of money."

Remy and I looked at each other. His eyes were weary like mine. My body and spirit were tired.

We didn't talk back to the driver. No point to it, no point to asking if the health care crisis really was caused by mutants, and I think that after Asteroid M we were both kinda finished with trying to convince folks who'd already made up their minds. So I got in line to use what was left of my charm on the woman behind the desk and see when Dazzler could get some assistance, while Gambit tried to contact Beast again and find out where he was (best of our knowledge he was with a small group of others fighting a battle against Cortez's people somewhere overseas).

We finally got through to Hank and Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler was gonna do some teleporting to get Hank and Dazzler back to the mansion where she could be cared for, which was a godsend since we were told it would be at least two hours before they could treat Dazzler despite that she was bleeding to death right there and then.

***

Dazzler lived, but it was gonna be quite some time before she'd see battle again. Speaking of battles, we got word that Cortez's next strike was likely gonna be at UN conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Most of the team piled on the Blackbird and got ready. One of the main topics they were gonna discuss in Geneva was "Cortez's War", as it was being called, so we had to be there and make sure the conference was safe and secure.

Some of us stayed in the Blackbird, others patrolled the building. Thousands of UN troops were there too. We waited. We watched our sensors. Jean concentrated but didn't sense a hoard of angry Cortez people. Then a communicator beeped, and it was the Professor.

"The rumor of an attack on the UN conference was a decoy. Get to Washington DC! Cortez's people are minutes away and planning an all-out attack."

So we scrambled to get back to the US, to our capital, to defend it. Our President was here in Geneva, but an attack on our capital was unacceptable whether or not our President was actually there in person. My heart was pounding all over again.

"You won't be alone," the Professor added as the Blackbird's engines fired up and worked to get us across the Atlantic as fast as possible. "X-Factor and Alpha Flight just acknowledged that they'll be there too."

That was good. We often fought alongside X-Factor, and occasionally what was left of Alpha Flight joined us too. No offense to the UN troops or to our own country's military, but it was easier to fight alongside fellow mutants. They just were a bit more skilled in fighting back against Cortez's people.

We got to DC just as Cortez's air force was swooping down. We had a few strategies planned for when they attacked, and I got right on one of them. I flew out of the Blackbird and dodged the fire power of the first plane. I reached its tail and grabbed it by that tail. It was hot enough to singe a normal person's skin but when I'm in battle like this, that sorta thing doesn't phase me – in fact, I hardly notice it. I swirled the plane around by its tail and then crashed it to the ground. I saw Alpha Flight rush up to the downed aircraft to deal with fighting Cortez's people. Enough of them would survive the crash without injuries to cause trouble.

"Rogue, look out!" Jean's voice reached me telepathically, and not a second too soon. I flew away just in time to avoid getting hit with firepower from the second aircraft. I had to move fast. If I were Cortez, I'd count Rogue as a major target given how fast I could bring one of his precious planes down. By our count, he had enough aircraft to be dangerous but he didn't have a ton either. He'd stolen some on an earlier raid.

The rest of the X-men provided enough cover; they got right on attaching the other plane. Meanwhile, I headed for the ground as I saw that Cortez somehow also had a contingent of ground troops heavily armed and heading for the White House.

Storm was there instantly too. She used a whirlwind to send a bunch of the troops away. That mutant of Cortez's who could conjure a bunch of small, biting animals was all over me – I got covered with those horrid things and had to spend my time fighting them off. I noticed Wolverine fighting hand-to-hand with a few of Cortez's people as well. Beast was there in front of the White House too, picking up one of Cortez's men and throwing him far, then fighting with another one hand to hand.

Cortez's people weren't bad fighters. When they weren't attacking, he must be training them and we knew that plenty of them had already come to Cortez with some combat experience; they knew how to fight. We were hoping that by now some of them would be tired of war, tired of the fact that non-mutants hadn't laid down and surrendered after the second battle. But as far as we could tell, his people were in it for the long haul. They had nothing else but to follow what Cortez said.

When I finally had crushed each of those creatures that were attacking me, I looked around to see where to fight next and see if anyone needed my help. I noticed one of Alpha Flight's people doing a spectacular job fighting. Couldn't see him too well since he was moving really fast – he just looked like a whirl of the red and white Alpha Flight uniform. When he finally slowed down enough, I saw that it was Northstar. Hadn't been aware that he'd rejoined them.

But then several more of Cortez's men advanced on me. Like I said, they had every reason to wanna take me out given what I'd done to their aircraft and what I could pretty easily do to their fleet.

I wasn't gonna be so easy to take down though. The guy who had that power to unleash biting creatures – he lay on the ground not far from me since Wolverine had dealt him several blows. It's generally not a good idea to drain power from someone you don't know well. Who knew what was in his head or whether you'd be able to control his powers? But I was feeling cocky. I also saw the guy stirring a bit and didn't want him getting back up.

So I took my glove off and touched him. Just for a second. Enough to drain off a bit of his power and make him lose consciousness. Then I pointed my finger at Cortez's people and sent a bunch of those biting creatures after them. That took them by surprise.

Not long after, Cortez's team beat a hasty retreat. Storm stayed to talk to the White House and lead the damage control stuff, while Hank came up to me and insisted I get in the Blackbird and get some medical treatment for the bites I'd gotten. I looked down and noticed that I was bleeding.

I don't get injured or sick that often, but when I do, there's nowhere I'd rather be than in the infirmary at the mansion and under Hank's care. I wasn't alone in there. One of Alpha Flight's people, Puck, got shot during the battle and Hank had to first patch him up.

I waited for Hank to be free and was kinda glad that Remy wasn't there. He was with the small group left behind to guard the convention in Geneva. He'd be fawning over me which would be nice but also annoying.

As I waited for Hank's attentions, Jean came up to me and asked if I was alright. I told her I was fine, just in a bit of pain.

"Hank's going to want to run some tests on you, to make sure those animal things don't transmit any diseases or what have you," Jean said.

I nodded. "Ain't nothing that Blue Boy can't take care of, I'm sure."

Jean smiled at my using Hank's old nickname, and soon enough Hank took a look at me. He drew some blood, bandaged me up, and ran some tests.

Just as he was finishing up, Northstar entered the infirmary to check on Puck. I saw Hank get quite excited when he saw Northstar, and I had to admit that I was curious as well.

"Northstar," Hank said, approaching him as soon as the Canadian was done checking in on his teammate. "May I have a word with you?"

"What is it?" Northstar asked, and crossed his arms over his chest. His voice was heavily accented – given that he was French Canadian I figured that his distant ancestors had been French, like Remy's, though it was a totally different sort of accent than Remy's. "I suppose you X-men want to ask me to leave?"

I was taken aback when I heard his tone. I hadn't ever interacted with Northstar hardly at all but I must've been thinking that his personality would be similar to Bobby's. Stupid of me, I know, but do I gotta say again that things were a lot different back then?

"No, no, not at all. You fought most admirably today. I – I was wondering if you had any news of Bobby. Iceman, our former teammate. I know that before you left Asteroid M, he went to see you. We've not seen him since that time on Asteroid M, prior to the war."

"Yes, you – how do you say it? – kicked him out, did you not?" He paused, and then when Hank gave a tentative nod, Northstar continued. "I might have some news of him."

And Northstar left it at that. It was clear from looking at him that he was done talking. But it was pretty easy to see that Hank wasn't about to drop the subject, so he took on a slightly different tone.

"Can you share what you know with me? Bobby and I had been friends. His dismissal has never sat right with me. However it has been so hectic here with the war that I've not been able to search for him or find out what had happened. I thought that perhaps you might know, but I apologize if I've intruded."

On the spur of the moment, I decided to speak up too. I was good at sweet-talking, though I realized a second too late that Northstar likely wouldn't be as moved by my sweet-talking as other men. "I always had a soft spot for Bobby myself," I said. "I don't think anyone liked what happened. Is there any chance you might know how he is?"

It was becoming pretty clear that Northstar wasn't sweet-natured and amenable like Bobby. I also guessed that he liked the fact that he knew something that we wanted to know.

"I do not quite see why I should share," Northstar said, "but perhaps later I will tell you what I know. Please take good care of Puck."

With that, he turned and left.

Hank and I looked at each other. "Is that guy always such a pain?" I wondered.

I'd forgotten for a second that Jean was there. She spoke up and said, "Heather told me that he does have a reputation for not always being the easiest person to get along with. He is a good fighter though, as you said, Hank."

Jean then continued, "I also wish I knew what happened to Bobby. I've thought of asking the Professor to use Cerebro to locate him but…" her voice trailed off. The Professor was exhausted. Bone-tired. He took Magneto's death hard, and now his worst nightmare had come true: a war was raging between mutants and regular humans. Last time I'd seen the Professor, I'd worried. A tiny voice inside of me had whispered the unthinkable: that he might not have that much longer to live. That thought had been unbearable, and I don't think I was the only one who'd had it. So I sure wasn't about to ask him for anything extra.

"Can you try to contact Bobby?" Hank asked Jean.

I imagine that Hank had kept from asking Jean about this before since she wasn't in the best of spirits lately either. She loved the Professor and was having a hard time watching him like this. She was a peaceful and gentle lady, I'd always surmised, and this war had to be really hard on her. And Jean loved everyone else on the team – watching the rest of us putting our lives on the line was wearing on her soul too. Not to mention that she had to fear that she'd lose Cyclops given that he led the way in most of our battles.

"I can try. Years ago during our training, I spoke with him telepathically, so I may be able to reach him again."

"Please do try," Hank said. "So much time has already been lost; let's not waste another moment."

Jean nodded, and then closed her eyes. She opened them just a moment or two later.

"He's alive," she said quietly. "But he wouldn't…let me in, so to speak. It's like I knocked on his door but he didn't want to answer. I – I always respect that, when someone does not wish their mind to be intruded upon. I learned that from the Professor."

"But hey, at least there's some good news," I said, turning to Hank. "He's alive. And if he was in danger or if he needed help then he wouldn't have…wouldn't have 'closed the door', as you said, right Jean? He would've told us?"

Hank didn't look too convinced, and I guess I wasn't either.

"I am glad he is alive," Hank said, "but I am not convinced on that second part. If Bobby is in need of some assistance, we have not quite given him the impression that he can approach us for it, have we?"

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Chapter Six

The next day Cortez successfully bombed out Alpha Flight's headquarters. We hadn't seen that one coming at all. Thank heavens above that their members – all eight of them – were here at the mansion when the attack occurred. So no one was hurt.

It only made sense for them to move in with us. We had plenty of room, and lately they'd been great allies in our struggles. Guess we shouldn't have scoffed at their size before. They were small but mighty.

X-Factor still had their own headquarters, even though half their members spent most of their time here and had their own rooms here too.

Except Forge of course. I gotta give the guy credit. I'd see him in the war room and fight alongside him in battle, and he was – well, he was professional. He knew that we were fighting on the right side and that he had to work with us if he wanted Cortez and FOH defeated. He fought as hard as anyone else did. But he was cold as ice. Never had a line of small talk or a friendly chit chat with anyone. And anytime he was in the same room as Storm or Wolverine, I hate to use a cliché but you really could cut the tension with a knife.

With Dazzler and the Alpha Flight guy Puck left in the infirmary recovering, a bunch of the team were deployed to counter a strike by FOH. The Professor had intercepted a report that said FOH were planning to take a bunch of civilian hostages at a conference in Tokyo and use them to force us to surrender.

Of course only half the team could go. The last thing we needed was for Cortez to strike while we were away protecting potential hostages.

Remy was assigned to that team heading for Tokyo. I hated the idea of him going without me there. Being at war upped the stakes on everything. The others felt that way too, I knew. Storm was heading for Tokyo to lead that battle, but Wolverine was staying behind like me.

I stood inside the hangar next to Wolverine. The Blackbird was being stocked up with weapons and was gonna leave imminently.

One of Cortez's shuttles sat in the corner of the hangar. We'd shot it down during a battle, and we kept it here to see what we could learn from it. I understood that it might've been functional with just a few repairs, though we weren't using it to go into space.

"Good thing Cortez's people and FOH hate each other so much," Logan snorted. His eyes were on the Blackbird and not on me. "If they teamed up to beat us, we'd be in even more trouble."

"Yeah," I said. "But if they had half a brain among them, that's exactly what they'd do. We're their common enemy."

He grunted in reply. A second or two later, the team that was departing for Tokyo entered the hangar with their weapons and other equipment in tow. I stood quietly by, watching Storm and Wolverine.

"Knock 'em dead, Ro," he said.

It seemed like a weird thing to say, to me. Wasn't like she was giving a singing or dancing performance. But words weren't Wolverine's strong point, and Storm sure didn't care. They embraced each other and then kissed full on, apparently not giving a thought to who saw. I thought how great it would be to feel the lips of the person you love, right on yours. They'd be soft, I knew, fleshy. Not wet unless you put your tongue in. I wondered about it some more.

I felt Remy's eyes on me – curse that man, I'd swear he knew how to read minds. And my face felt hot.

"Take care of yourself, Gambit," I said. My voice came out sounding small and maybe even weak, and I didn't quite meet his eyes.

"Don't worry 'bout me, chere. Gambit knows what he's doin', plus Storm's a great leader."

He strode right up to me as he spoke. He reached for one of my gloved hands and kissed it.

Every muscle in my body wanted to pull him towards me and hug him, but I wasn't gonna give him any more mixed signals. I'd been bad about that. So I forced myself to keep my posture and not reach for him.

"I'll be thinking of you," I managed to say.

Remy read my body language and didn't push forward with an embrace. He just nodded at what I said and boarded the Blackbird.

***

We got the news in the War Room several hours later. "They're on their way back," the Professor said. "One member of X-Factor – Wolfsbane - is injured, but it's nothing serious. No other injuries."

I exhaled. I think I'd been holding my breath since they'd left, maybe even hoping for a battle here with Cortez's people to at least take my mind off things.

When the others returned, we had a quick debrief in the War Room. There wasn't much too it – FOH had a lot more people than Cortez but at least they were generally easier to beat. Fortunately no civilians had been seriously injured.

"Come on," Cyclops said to the group, as soon as the debrief was over. "We're all going out for beer."

I nearly fell off my chair and I saw many other mouths open wide. I looked at Remy and he looked pretty darn surprised too.

"I'm serious!" Cyclops said, and there might've been a trace of a smile on his hard jaw. "We're all exhausted and stressed. I can't remember the last time I've been out for a beer. We should do this."

Remy muttered, just quietly enough that I think only I heard it, "Don't remember Cyke goin' out for many beers even before the war – no wonder he can't remember the last time."

I giggled, and I also noticed a lot of other smiles and nods. People looked like they wanted to go.

"I agree – please, everyone, do something tonight which you find enjoyable," the Professor said. "Just be prepared, as you always are. I will monitor Cerebro and all our sensors, and I will contact you at the first sign of danger."

"What about you, Professor?" Jean asked. "You need to rest and relax too."

"Agreed. I will do so tomorrow, when you've all returned."

I think the look on the Professor's face convinced me. He looked like he desperately wanted us to go, and have some fun. Heck, maybe seeing Cyclops in need of a night out had convinced the Professor.

"Great," Cyclops said. "Now all we need is to find a bar with a parking lot big enough for the Blackbird."

I guessed Cyke was trying to be funny; I leaned over and whispered to Remy, "I think the stress of the war has gone and taken Cyke's mind once and for all."

He smiled, and then I felt bad like we were doing cutesy things that couples did and I was giving him mixed signals again.

A big group of us headed out and made it to the bar. We went in a few different vehicles, so we weren't all arriving at the same time. That was likely a good thing. I had an inkling that we might cause a stir when we walked in to the place, so entering the place in smaller groups would have to help. I guess you don't generally see a dozen folks walking in at once, and especially not folks who look the way we do.

But the evening started out normal enough. Instead of sitting at the bar, we pushed a few tables together and someone came to take our drink orders even though not everyone had arrived yet. She asked for a credit card up front, and I didn't know if that was normal or not, but Cyclops handed over the card and all looked to be alright. The waitress was fast too.

"Oooh, that looks good," I said, looking at Jean's margarita.

"I haven't had one of these in ages," she said, smiling. "Have a sip."

"Thanks. Don't mind if I do. And you're welcome to have some of mine, sugar."

As I took a sip of Jean's margarita, I remembered that pregnant women weren't supposed to drink, and so that there must not be even the slightest doubt in Jean's mind – she and Scott still had to have had no luck in that area. I heard that stress didn't help with those matters, so I didn't figure she'd be conceiving any time soon.

I'd wanted to talk with her about this and see how she was doing – it had been so long since I'd just sat down in a relaxed way with anyone-, but the crowded bar wasn't really the place. Then I saw the last group of our people enter. It was mostly a group of Alpha Flight people, with a few of our own X-men.

The bar was kinda dark and people were talking, but something didn't escape my notice. I saw Northstar sit towards the other end of the table – and saw Cannonball and Colossus get up and move to my end of the table, the moment Northstar sat down. I felt something rise up in me but just kinda swallowed it down.

"Bobby would've liked this outing," I said, I guess to Jean.

She looked a bit taken aback, but she also appeared to recover fast. "Yes," she said. "I think he liked to hang out with the group."

Sometimes Bobby had come with us and hung out with us when we'd gone out like this. But a few folks had tended to ignore him, and one or two others went so far as to treat him like he'd had the plague. And now he was gone.

A few people were sitting between where I was and where Remy sat. I sighed to myself, knowing that my heart was never gonna do what I wanted it to. I wanted to be near Remy so bad. I wanted to be next to him, relaxed and joking around. But I had to be firm. I also had to stop wondering if he was dating anyone because I speculated about it all the time. (My best guess had been that he'd have had a hard time finding the time because of the war, and I didn't see any sort of spark between him and the women in X-Factor or Alpha Flight. Then I wondered what was wrong with those other ladies.) I kept glancing over at Remy, enough so that I think Jean saw it.

So I forced myself to do something else. After everyone had a drink, I went over to the other side of the table. There were empty seats there given how Cannonball and Colossus had cleared out after Northstar had had the audacity to sit next to them. Just about the same time I moved, Beast entered the bar. He sat in the other vacated seat next to Northstar.

"I needed to check in on my patients before I could enjoy our evening out," Beast explained. "But everyone's condition is stable, and the Professor specifically requested that I –"

"You do not have to explain yourself," Northstar said, cutting him off. "You are entitled to a night off as well."

"That may be so," Hank said. "However I feel quite, well, obligated to take care of those who are injured."

"Have a drink," I said. "That might make you feel better. Our waitress is comin' this way now."

We talked about small things for a while. Hank asked Northstar a bit about his past – turns out the guy was an Olympic skier, which was pretty interesting. Then Northstar told us a bit about his time with Alpha Flight. He sure didn't lack any self-confidence judging by the way he talked about his past battles as a member of the Canadian team. But he wasn't unpleasant to listen to, and he did ask us stuff about ourselves too, and looked interested in our answers, which scored him a few points in my book.

By the time we were on our second drinks, I think Hank got to what he – and I – had to have been hoping to chat about ever since we sat down near Northstar. When there was a lull in the conversation, he said to the Canadian. "I miss Bobby. Do you know anything that might lead us to his whereabouts?"

Northstar was quiet for a second and he took a swig of his beer. "I truly do not have much information for you. He sought me out not long after he was…dismissed."

"He did?" I asked, leaning into the table and willing the mild effects of my Long Island Iced Tea to go away so I could think more clearly. "How was he?"

"How was he? He was very hurt. A bit lost, I would say."

"Did you spend a lot of time with him? What happened?"

"One question at a time, si vous plait. I did not spend much time with him at all. I told him that I intended to rejoin Alpha Flight and fight in the war, because it was the right thing to do even if my team had made a most egregious error in asking me to leave. I told him that I would fight so well that Mac, Heather, and the others would dearly regret their poor judgment. And of course because I have no love lost for either Cortez or FOH. It turned out that I was right, of course, about the other members of Alpha Flight regretting my departure."

I wished Northstar would stop bragging and tell us more about Bobby! I forced myself to listen politely.

"We are so lucky that you made that decision since you're a great fighter," I said. "Can you tell us what happened next in your conversation with Bobby?"

"Not much happened at all. I believe he did not want me to rejoin Alpha Flight but to rather…stay with him. He likes to be around other people, it appeared to me. He is not what you could call a loner." Northstar paused. "I assume you want me to tell you where I think he went next, but I do not know for sure. I recall him being uncertain in this regard. He said at one point that he had no work history and no degree, and was not close to his family. He said that he had some money saved from the stipend that Xavier gives and that he hoped he could make it last a while. Truthfully, I do regret leaving him in the condition he was in."

"You refer to…his mental condition?" Hank asked.

Northstar nodded. "As I said, he was quite hurt over the whole matter."

I looked at the Canadian man who spoke with the smooth accent. I wondered if he and Bobby had been….gosh, what would you call it? Had they been "together", like a couple? Or just friends? If there had been something between them, wouldn't Northstar be displaying more concern over Bobby? Or were homosexuals just different in that regard? I really didn't know and you just didn't talk about this sort of thing back then. I wished Remy wasn't at the other end of the table; he always knew what to do and say in difficult situations.

"Is it true? Does he have no family?" Northstar asked.

I looked again at Northstar's face and saw something in his eyes that made me think he maybe really was concerned about Bobby.

I shrugged, "From what I know, his family situation is the same as half the team's. He has plenty of blood relatives – most of his are somewhere in New York state, not that far from here I think – but they ain't close. They didn't want a mutant in the family."

"Can you not have Jean or the Professor contact him telepathically?"

I told Northstar about Jean's one try, and our reasons for not asking Xavier to do it.

Hank then added, "Perhaps telepathy is not the right method anyway. Is there anything else you can tell us that might lead us to him? Can you think of any other clues he might have given?"

Northstar looked at his drink and seemed to be thinking. "He said that he'd always been good with figures – numbers – and computers. He spoke of perhaps trying to find a job in computers or as a bookkeeper. But I am not sure that he would have remained in this area of the country. He spoke about the expensive cost of living here." Northstar then added, "I am also not certain that he would have…pulled himself together sufficiently to find an apartment and employment. Do you Americans have places that you go to when you cannot…pull yourselves together? A group home, a shelter, something like that? And somewhere that will accept mutants?"

Hank and I looked at each other. I started to speak, "Well, sugar, I'm not sure. There are shelters for homeless people, some churches can take people in their basements. Plus Bobby don't look like a mutant so that's gotta help."

Hank abruptly stood up. "Excuse me. I am sorry for leaving so soon but I must return to the mansion."

"But—" I started to say, but Hank was already thanking Northstar for the information and bidding us good evening. It really wasn't like the guy to just rush out, but he was pretty much gone before I could blink and that was that.

And then not a minute or two after Hank left, the trouble started. I was already on edge with worried thoughts about Bobby – the booze wasn't doing much to relax me – when we heard some loud voices from the other end of the bar. I bet you can guess what they were saying. Words I'd been hearing way too long.

"…A bunch of freaks!"

"Look at 'em!"

"Didn't know this bar catered to muties."

"Thanks for bringing the war on us, muties!"

The gentlemen making these comments moved closer to our table. Man, these guys had to be real stupid or real drunk. I didn't see a weapon on any of them. Why on earth would they want to make a dozen and a half mutants angry – they had to have an inkling that we could beat the pants off of them if we wanted to.

The men continued with their taunting, and we all exchanged looks around the table. Me, I figured that arguing was out of the question, and fighting definitely was out of the question. What would be the point?

But it turned out that not everyone agreed with me. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was that we had sharpened our debating skills during our stay on Asteroid M, maybe it was that a few folks were stubborn.

"We're just enjoying a night out," Storm said. Her voice was smooth and calm, even pleasant to listen to. I think she was smiling.

"She's right," Cyclops said. "We're not hurting anyone. Can't you just let us be?"

"What have we ever done to you?" Jubilee asked.

"We don't like the war anymore than you do," Storm said. "Which is why we fight against Cortez to protect all humans – mutant and non-mutant."

In a split second or two, I registered how the rest of the X-men must've looked to the guys who didn't want us here. Wolverine was next to Storm, and he can look pretty menacing even when his claws aren't out. Colossus had to be the biggest guy in the room. And the X-Factor's Strong Guy was there too; definitely not the kind of guy you want to pick a fight with.

So the taunting guys backed off and left us alone. They muttered a few words, one of them tugged at another's arm, and they went back to where they'd been sitting. I really figured it had more to do with them realizing how completely outnumbered they were, rather than the wise words of Storm and the others. But who knows? Maybe one thing that the other X-men had said actually sank in to the close-minded guys.

We didn't stay too long after the incident. I was ready to go. It was a nice change of pace and I had fun, but I also started thinking of some other things I might enjoy that night, like a bubble bath and a warm bed.

As I was heading for the door, I felt a hand on my arm. Who am I kidding? Of course I knew who it was the second I registered the touch on my arm. I always had an idea where Remy was.

"It was nice to see you relaxin' a bit, chere," he said.

"Likewise, Swamp Rat," I said, turning to look at him. My heart nearly lurched at seeing him. I loved everything about looking at him. His eyes, his hair, his strong arms. I had to make myself stop thinking those kind of things. "I wonder if you would've had more fun, though, if you'd had a lady friend on your arm."

"Only if that lady friend was you," he said, and he slipped an arm around my shoulders.

"I gotta give you credit, Remy," I said. "You're one persistent man." I actually chuckled. Didn't anyone else think that his stubbornness was absolutely crazy? Especially when he could have any woman he desired.

"That I am," he admitted.

"But it ain't to be, Swamp Rat," I said, dislodging his arm from my shoulders. "Now go find yourself a girl you can touch and leave me alone."

With that, I leapt into the air and flew back to the mansion.

***

Since we were at war, each day when we woke up, we reported to the War Room to be briefed. It was the best way to find out what was going on and where we might be deployed that day – well, that is, if we had actually been able to sleep through the night and hadn't been woken by an alarm. Sometimes our briefings took place at three in the morning as we rushed for the Blackbird and our next defense. Some of us even slept in our uniforms though that night I didn't, not after that bubble bath.

That night was a calm one. I nearly couldn't believe it when I woke up feeling rested – I glanced at the clock and saw that I'd had nearly eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, which had to have been a record in recent months. Given my bath the night before, didn't see the need to shower so when I woke I just pulled on a clean uniform, pulled a brush through my hair, and went to the War Room.

"Hank's left," Cyclops said to me the minute I entered the room. "He's gone."

My eyes went wide, and the previous night's talk with Northstar at the bar came back to me.

"He's comin' back soon," I said. "He was talkin' about this at the bar last night. Sounded like he wanted to go find Bobby but….but I'm sure he'll get back here soon. He sure didn't say that he was leavin' for good!"

"He left a note," the Professor said, sounding serious. "He said that all the patients in the infirmary are in stable condition and that he will return as soon as possible – but not until he has located Bobby."

"Can't you contact him? Or better yet, can't you locate Bobby and tell Hank right where he is?" As I asked the questions, I made my way over to the side table that we kept against the wall, stocked with all sorts of breakfast foods. It just made things easier to have stuff to eat in the War Room since who knew when you'd be able to make it to the kitchen?

The Professor nodded. "I did speak telepathically with Hank this morning. He asked, rather insistently, that he would like to be allowed to locate Bobby. He expressed concern over my stress levels and asked me not to use Cerebro." The Professor paused. "We reached an agreement. If he cannot locate Bobby in a few days on his own, then I will use Cerebro – so that Hank can find Bobby and then return to us."

"We can't be without our doctor in the middle of a war," Cyclops said. "Plus Hank…he's one of our best fighters, he's brilliant – he contributes so much."

I nodded as I ripped open the top of a yogurt container. I desperately wished for some hot grits and decided I was gonna make some today, war or no war. "You said it," I agreed.

"We will manage for a few days," the Professor said. "I am glad we reached a compromise. And I appreciate everyone's concern over my use of Cerebro. I assure you that if and when I need to use it, I will be well enough to do so."

I sure hoped he was right.

***

One of Cortez's people showed up at our doorstep the next day, unarmed. She was known as Mince, and we'd met her in battle a few times. She shot out these tiny discs which could cut flesh. She was a clumsy fighter, not too well-trained. But she was young, fast, and agile. Now that I saw her up close I guessed that the girl couldn't be any older than 19.

When I said that she was unarmed, I meant she wasn't carrying any weapons and was wearing plainclothes. And she was alone. Still, we kept our distance. She was trapped by the force field protecting the mansion, and we spoke to her via remote for safety reasons.

"What brings you to our headquarters?" Storm asked her.

Mince's voice came through the speakers loud and clear. "I'm defecting! Cortez is crazy and I don't wanna work with him anymore."

"You expect us to believe that?" Cyclops asked, but I knew his question had to be what I'd call bravado. The Professor and Jean didn't like to invade people's minds without their consent, but we were at war and they'd sure as heck do that now.

In fact, Jean entered the War Room a second later, and I saw her give Cyke a nod.

"You can come in for questioning," he told Mince. "Nightcrawler will bring you in."

***

Mince told us that she was disillusioned with Cortez. Gone, apparently, was the caring leader who was an advocate for the people, and now according to Mince "he treats us like cannon fodder." Jean and the Professor indicated that she was telling the truth, and the two of them had to be right of course. They were only the two most powerful telepaths on the face of the earth. So apparently this girl Mince was serious about having seen the light about Cortez and wanting to bring him down.

Mince brought with her a bunch of schematics from Asteroid M, with a lot of information about their defense systems and how to bring them down without disabling an alarm. The crown jewel of what she brought, though, was enough technical and scientific mumbo-jumbo that it gave us what we needed to know in order to "cloak" the Blackbird – make it invisible to Asteroid M's sensors. Using that plus disabling their defense systems would be the key to giving Cortez what he's got coming to him.

I sure wished we had Hank with us at that point since he could've figured out what to do with those schematics – but we did have Forge. He was still mad about what had happened with Storm and Wolverine, but he wanted to win this war too. And the guy was a scientific genius.

"Are these schematics still any good though? Now that Mince has defected, Cortez is surely going to change all these plans," Forge said as we all sat around the table in the War Room to figure out our next steps.

"He doesn't know I've defected," Mince said. "I faked my own death."

She described what she did – somehow making it look like she was melted in an accident inside the engine room. She again was telling the truth according to the Professor and Jean, though I guess we wouldn't know for sure whether Cortez really believed she was dead. Then again, he had no reason not to believe it.

"Regardless we should act quickly," Forge said.

I still had to blink once or twice at seeing folks like Forge or Alpha Flight's Mac (or Callisto – the Morlocks had hightailed it off the space station a few weeks after we did) sitting around the mansion with us. It was nice to have allies, don't get me wrong, but I kinda missed the days when it was just like 10 of us living together here.

"These schematics could change anytime," Forge finished.

"I agree," Cyclops said. "This war has dragged on long enough. With this information from Mince, we could strike a few swift blows and bring Cortez down once and for all."

"We will still have FOH's war against us to deal with on the home front," Storm said. "But once we can bring down one enemy, we can focus on defeating the other."

We had our marching orders and we began to develop a plan. As our plan took shape, I realized something. Stealth was a big part of our plan. It involved doing a lot of sneaking on board the station and disabling weaponry, a task which was quite dangerous.

And one X-man was an expert at stealth.

***

You know how I've told you about the adrenaline we get before battles? Think I mentioned too that with a war, it's different. You feel weary and tired in your bones. I wasn't getting so much adrenaline, and that was making each fight harder. Almost like you're moving through mud in a way.

We were jammed on board the Blackbird, with its fancy new "cloak" that had been tested and re-tested. Most of the X-men, plus most of X-Factor and Alpha Flight were on board – just a skeleton crew was left behind to defend our base. Professor Xavier would stay back at the mansion with the skeleton crew.

We'd also gotten word that Cortez might be launching a new attack on some of the US military's bases – at the same time we were heading out on our mission. That'd be a good thing, if some of Cortez's people were off fighting somewhere else.

We had a lot at stake on this mission, but the idea that this might put an end to the war with Cortez was enough to kick at some of that dampened adrenaline. We might really be able to end the fighting.

And Gambit would be playing a key role in this mission. It was all planned out. I blinked my eyes a few times. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed since Mince had shown up on our doorstep, and I think that it had only had been a matter of a few hours.

When Gambit and I had boarded the Blackbird, we'd exchanged a look. Part of me was screaming inside to go to him and wrap my arms around him. But he'd looked away – I guess he was tired of the hundreds of times that I'd put him off, and I don't blame him. But it wasn't quite the right time for emotional words and farewells either. Dozens of X-men and the others carrying weapons had bounded onto the Blackbird and before you could blink it was time to take off.

"Ten minutes until we reach Asteroid M," Cyclops reported.

"If they can detect us, they're showing no signs of it," Storm added.

Good. The cloak was working. My heart started to beat a little faster as we got closer to Asteroid M.

***

We reached the space station. Now we'd come to a real test of the information we'd gotten from Mince.

Jean's eyes were closed and she looked to be concentrating. "I don't sense anything unusual," she said.

"Our sensors also aren't showing any unusual activity from Asteroid M," Storm added.

It was real quiet in the Blackbird and you could hear Jean's and Storm's voices really well. My heart was pounding like I wanted to be in battle and kicking some, instead of sitting in here worrying about what Gambit had to do next.

"Then let's go forward with it," Cyclops said.

The Blackbird was steered into position alongside one of Asteroid M's exhaust vents. Cyclops and Gambit stood up and started putting on their suits. Storm and Jean each performed several checks of both of their suits.

"Good luck," Storm said. She sounded solemn. Of course she was good friends with Remy – and she sure respected Cyclops a lot too. Who am I kidding? We were all close. We all wanted Cyclops and Gambit to succeed in their mission, and not just 'cause we wanted Cortez defeated.

Waiting is the hardest part. It'd be so much easier if I was in the middle of a battle and I could be fighting my opponents, but I ain't gonna beat that dead horse. All I could do was look at the clock and then also think back to tips Xavier had given us over the years. Breathe. Breathe slower and count your breaths. And try not to think too much – this ain't the time for it.

"They did it!" Jean said. Her voice sounded really loud because everyone else had gone so quiet. "The defense system is down!"

We had just a few seconds to move before Cortez and the others would figure out what was going on. With the defense system down, we flew right on in to the shuttle bay and we docked that thing fast. Nightcrawler started teleporting us out en masse – no point in being subtle now. There were always folk inside the shuttle bay, so Cortez would know he was under attack pretty soon. But this time we'd actually gotten onto Asteroid M – we managed to make it this far without being shot down.

By the time Cortez's fighters arrived, we were already halfway to the control room. Just like we X-men were tired from this war which had been going on forever, well Cortez's people had to be experiencing battle fatigue too. They sure fought like it. And thank heavens a bunch of his troops weren't on the space station anyway, off on their attack back on earth.

This battle was a blur. I don't recall a lot of the details. One of Cortez's people shot at me, I flew up over him, grabbed him, and slammed him into a wall. Expected him to make another go at me, but he just kinda limped off. Yep, I was right – Cortez's people were tired and it was starting to show.

But – there were a lot more of them than us. A lot more. We might've had the best fighters on the planet but Cortez had numbers, even with a bunch of them down there on earth.

We kept pushing 'em back, trying to make it look like we were making our way for the control room. But we were planning on using Nightcrawler just the same as before. He'd teleported us off the Blackbird fast, and he could teleport us into the control room fast too. Given Cortez's numbers, he'd need to get more than a few of us there.

The plan was for Nightcrawler to start by teleporting me and Storm to the control room, and then send along the others as back up. Me and Storm were picked to go first since we were two of the most powerful ones on the team.

Trouble was that – tired or not – Cortez's people were on to us. They sure knew what Nightcrawler could do, and they started to go after him. Storm's voice rang out over our communicators: "Defend Nightcrawler!"

Cortez's people were starting to aim at him, to concentrate on bringing him down. So meant the rest of us had to mount a powerful defense.

Nightcrawler teleported me and Storm to the control room. A split second before we went, I caught a glimpse of a few of Cortez's people heading right for us – and of Wolverine pushing those claws out and getting the fighters to back off.

It all happened so fast.

Cortez didn't leave his control room un-guarded. As soon as we materialized there, we got shot at. A few thunderbolts from Storm stopped the shots pretty quick, but I knew there'd be more.

"Better bring us a few reinforcements, Kurt!" I said.

"On my way!" Nightcrawler said.

Storm started looking at the equipment in the control room and shutting down and messing with whatever she needed to. Gambit and Cyke may've shut down the defense grid but there was a lot more we needed to do too. She did something to confuse Cortez's sensors on board the space station. I kept my eyes on the door.

"We're on our way too, Rogue!" Cyclops said over the communicator.

My heart again skipped a beat or two. The "we" Cyke referred to had to be him and Gambit given that they were the ones who'd slipped in earlier. I still had only a split second to think about all this.

I wished Beast was there. Storm looked to be managing fine but Beast maybe could've done this even faster. He had such a knack for this stuff. Nightcrawler teleported in with Angel and Banshee. We heard Cortez's people fast approaching, and then Gambit and Cyclops were there in a second.

And then Gambit got shot. It was a direct hit with a mighty weapon.

Gambit had armor and sometimes people shot only to knock you down and not to kill. But Gambit didn't get back up, didn't stir at all.

***

For a second, I lost it. I couldn't see – things over my eyes just got covered with a grey film and I felt weak. But just for a second. Then I did what I had to do.

I knew when someone was down you didn't move them. Moving injured folk was a tricky business. So I flew in front of Remy and got ready to beat the pants off his attackers. They were streaming down the hallway – there had to be a dozen of them, angry mutants running fast and shooting to kill. My heart skipped a beat there. I was angry and I was right powerful, but sheer numbers can be tough to deal with too. Especially when your insides are going crazy, knowing that the man you love was in big trouble.

Suddenly Cortez's people fell down. Literally, as if they were on ice. Then I saw that they really were literally on ice – the floor beneath them was turning to ice. Then a burst of ice shot out from behind, and an ice wall was put up separating them from us. Cortez's people were cut off.

For a second, I thought Storm might've done it but she was further inside the control room still messing with the controls. Then Nightcrawler teleported back, next to me and Remy – with Beast and Iceman! I had to blink a few times at the sight of them. What were they doing there? Hadn't seen Bobby in his Iceman form – all covered with ice – in ages. Then I recovered fast.

"Hank! Remy's injured!" Thank you, heavens above for bringing our doctor back to us!

"I see. Nightcrawler, please teleport Gambit and myself to the mansion's infirmary."

"Done!" Nightcrawler said, and in a second they were gone.

I almost felt giddy with relief – my head swam again for a split second, though this time it was definitely with joy. I didn't know how serious Remy's injuries were – they looked terrible from the glance I took – but thank the Lord he was in the right hands and in the right place. All I could do now was hope.

And fight. Fight like crazy. Later on I was to learn how exactly Beast and Iceman got on board Asteroid M, but for now we just fought. Gotta say I did my part quite well, taking down Cortez's troops like they were flies and I had a giant swatter. Saw Bobby a few more times and I was mighty surprised. He fought well, especially for someone who'd never trained that much. I always thought that ice power of his could be amazing in battle, and he did a great job.

Storm had done her work in the control room. Between his sensors being down and his troops being pummeled by the X-men (and X-Factor and Alpha Flight), Cortez was a goner. We captured his troops and started teleporting them down to the surface where they were imprisoned by UN forces. We captured Cortez himself, he went literally kicking and screaming as Wolverine and Forge tied him down.

By then the anxiety of waiting and then the excitement of battle were over. I tried to put it outta my head, but worry over Remy's condition was taking over and – with the adrenaline going away – I was getting plain tired too. I was fidgety.

Nightcrawler came up behind me. In a few split seconds, I registered that the man was tired too. He'd been teleporting like crazy all day and it looked like it had drained him. But then I learned that wasn't what was causing the haggard look on his face.

"Rogue, I have to teleport you to the mansion!" he gasped, out of breath. "Remy wants to see you."

"So he's conscious!" I said, excited.

"Yes. But…but it is not good. He wants to say goodbye."

***

A second later I was in the mansion's infirmary. Beast was standing over Remy. Remy's armor was on the floor and blood was everywhere. Remy's eyes weren't open.

"I need to perform surgery on him right now," Hank said. He then spoke into his communicator. "Nightcrawler, bring Jean down; I need her to assist."

My legs felt weak and for a second I couldn't stand. But Remy slowly opened his eyes and I saw them focus on me. I went right up to him and held his hand. As always, the darn glove was between us, protecting him from my touch.

"They gonna put me out in a second," Remy said. I'd never heard his voice like this. It was weak and thin, like he was really struggling to speak. His face was pale.

But I could tell from his eyes that he was glad I was there. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

"Everything gonna be okay, Remy," I said. I was proud of myself because my voice sounded quite a bit stronger than I felt. I don't think it even shook.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Got me a bad hand dis time."

Dimly I was aware that Jean had been teleported down. She and Hank were putting on surgical gowns. Then I re-played Remy's words and glanced at Hank. Hank gave me a look that told me everything.

"I love you, Remy. You know that," I rasped.

"I know. Den say you'll marry me. If I live through dis, say you'll be mine forever." He took another breath and it was plain to see that he was struggling to get the next few words out. "Ain't no point in me wakin' up from dis if it's wakin' up to another day without you."

I lost it right then, the tears just started coming and I didn't care that Hank and Jean were right there. Didn't even think of it. But more than anything, I knew Remy was right. We were supposed to be together. Nothing else mattered. The war had made things miserable but even despite it there had been hope. If Remy were to die, any last hope of love in my life would be gone.

"Yes. Remy, yes, I'll marry you."

Remy smiled. Hank politely asked me to move and said he had to get to work right away, and he put Remy out. I had never been more sure of anything in my life. As Remy's eyes closed and Hank began his work, I knew that one thing had been set right.

COMING SOON – THE EPILOGUE


	7. Epilogue

Epilogue

Well, I know you're dyin' to hear what all happened next – leastwise I hope you are and that I haven't bored you. I been going on and on, but I wanted to take you through Cortez's election to his defeat, and tell you what happened between me and Remy then.

It would take even more time to write out everything that happened in the decade since then – heavens above, has it really been almost 10 years? - and I'm done being wordy. So I'll sum it up here.

So, like I said, we defeated Cortez. He and his people went on trial for their crimes in a court of law. Xavier convinced us to get engaged in the trials of Cortez's troops. Cortez himself could hang for all most of us cared, but we had sympathy for his people, thinking most of them duped into fighting for him. So we spent much of the next few years in and out of the court system, attending trials, providing evidence, trying to help Cortez's troops get counseling instead of harsh punishment. Yep – these are the same exact people who voted against us on election day because we were elitist and all, on behalf of whom we spent a couple years busting our butts and sitting through boring trials. Many of them didn't appreciate the irony or appreciate our help – but lots of them did. And Cortez got an inhibitor collar around his neck for his sentence of life in maximum security.

We still had a war with FOH on our hands though, and they didn't seem put off by Cortez's defeat at all. In fact, I think they somehow were emboldened, even though with Cortez down it meant we had much more resources to fight FOH. We spent a good couple of years fighting them, and trying to convince the authorities to keep fighting alongside us to put down FOH. Somehow they weren't as enthusiastic about working with us to crush FOH as they had been about working with us against Cortez. Big surprise there.

The alliances we'd formed helped us a lot. I still missed the days when there were only like 10 X-men at the mansion, but we fought alongside X-Factor, Alpha Flight, and sometimes the Morlocks – and the company was good. Alpha Flight ended up disbanding, but a handful of their members joined us and became X-men, Northstar being one of them.

I always preferred the original, smaller group of X-men though. Something special about that team.

So, as you can imagine, we were pretty darn busy. Like we always were, so little time for any manner of resting. But I want to be sure to tell you what happened with the rest of the X-men, at least them that I was closest to.

I worried an awful lot about Xavier, as you've read, but turns out that I needn't have. He's still going strong, his mind sharp as ever though his body is weaker. I love the old man.

I realize that I never told you how it was that Hank and Bobby appeared on Asteroid M at the last minute and in the midst of our battle. Remember I'd mentioned that we had one of Cortez's shuttles in our hangar, one that we'd shot down? It had been pretty close to being functional, so when Hank found Bobby, they managed to fix it up right quick and follow us into space. Hank still had access to all our computer files, so he downloaded what we learned from that Mince girl about how do the cloak. Must be nice being a genius like that.

I don't have much else to add about Hank. Amazing how the more things change, the more they stay the same. He's still a bedrock like he always is. Cyclops and Storm gave him much more of a leadership role in the X-men over the years, and he was and is great at it. No surprise there either.

Since I mentioned Bobby I should update you on him too. Someday maybe I will tell you the whole story since it's interesting.

We were still way busy after the battle and it's not like we had much time to deliberate on whether or not Bobby could or should rejoin the X-men. I was occupied with something else, as you know, so I wasn't quite in on all the conversations but the gist of it is that the Professor and Hank spoke individually to everyone about the idea of Bobby rejoining. My understanding is that a few folks (you know the ones, I don't even need to say who) grumbled and said they weren't too happy about it but they agreed they'd support it since it was what Xavier and Hank insisted was best. We'd never had a situation like this before, where an X-man basically got kicked out and later rejoined, so things were plenty awkward. But you know, things were okay too. I made an effort to be extra nice to Bobby, and so did a few others. Pretty soon he was integrated back in the team, though there were always a few folks who didn't want him there. They kept from antagonizing him though.

Also, since we're getting a bit more comfortable talking about this kinda stuff I can tell you that he and Northstar were a couple. I guess you'd call it that. I can say it without blushing now, and in fact we'd hang out with them, sometimes go to the theater together with them. It's amazing what can change in a decade.

Oh, you'll notice that I said Bobby and Northstar were a couple. Bobby told me that they decided to take a break from being in a relationship and are just friends as of now. I don't know if they'll get back together or not. I kinda hope they do. Northstar can be a pain but I know now that he's got a good heart underneath it all.

I'm talking about relationships, so I may as well continue along those lines.

Jean and Scott adopted two Asian girls. They're good girls. You know that Jean and Scott are good parents, and they balance each other out – Jean keeps Scott from overdoing the discipline and all. I know Scott was all angsty for a while 'cause he couldn't figure out how to balance all his duties: being our leader and then being a dad. But he figured it out and he and his brood are doing just fine now.

Storm and Wolverine are still together too. And I guess daughters are the order of the day, because they had one. She's seven now, and it's scary how she's a total blend of both her parents. Mostly she's got the good aspects of both of them, and she's wise beyond her years. Storm and Wolverine never married – don't think they ever will – but they're still together and raising her right. The three of them go away for days at a time on a camping trip and they return looking happier than ever. Part of me wishes Storm and Wolverine would get married but I keep my mouth shut on that sorta thing; it ain't my life or my place to judge.

Storm and Wolverine having a daughter caused kinda an identity crisis for Jubilee. She'd reassured all of us that she'd be fine, and I really thought she would – but she ended up going through a few bad years there. She even left the X-men for a spell though we (mostly Storm and Wolverine) coaxed her back. I guess it was a matter of jealousy gone outta control; she'd been like Storm and Wolverine's niece and maybe she and they never realized how serious that bond was or how scary it was for her to be replaced in a way. She's doing better now but she can be sullen every now and then too. Sometimes I wish that girl would date though. She's cute but I ain't never seen her have much interest in a boyfriend.

So that brings us to Remy and me. The fact that I'm writing this and that I don't sound depressed at all has gotta have told you something.

He lived. He took a long while to recover and was out of battle for nearly a year. But he lived and he's fine now.

I kept to my promise. We were married by Nightcrawler right after Remy was awake and conscious enough following the three surgeries Hank performed on him. I wanted a proper wedding though, so 11 months later when Remy was really starting to recover, we had a full ceremony.

Now that is something I will give you the full scoop on sometime, I promise. But here is the run-down. It was a gorgeous day, with a bright blue sky and warm sun. I cried when I stood next to Remy after I walked down the aisle alongside the Professor and I cried when I read my vows. I smiled almost too broadly as I tossed that bouquet after the ceremony –I'd been so sure that I'd never be the one to toss the bouquet. And my dress was a beautiful, creamy white beaded affair. I'd never felt quite so happy in my whole life, and Remy felt the same way.

I still couldn't touch Remy back then, but I went through with the wedding as I'd promised. Now the rest really is too private to write about, but let me just say that Remy was quite creative and we found ways to please each other.

Then we got our hands on some Genoshan collars. We'd already been married for a couple years when we finally got our hands on a hidden supply of those things that had been secreted away on Genosha.

I ain't gonna write a lot about what happened after that, except to say that for several weeks there we rarely left our room and I think I wore Remy out a bit. But I must hasten to add that there were many other wonderful aspects to it and there is a lot more to touch than sex. Even just being able to kiss at last was pretty incredible though I felt like I was terribly awkward at it, at first. Then I got nearly addicted to Remy's kisses.

Among other things he did.

We have a son. He's four years old now. Maybe someday we'll have another child, but I don't think so. Just to be safe, I wore the collar my entire pregnancy, which was hard. Being a parent is a wonderful thing, but it's devilishly hard work and even harder when you have a job like an X-man's. But we manage, getting plenty of tips from the other parents as you might imagine. Our son is handsome like his father and well-behaved. I guess you can tell that I'm bursting with a ton of pride.

So that's it. Made it through that bad spell and am better than ever. Like I said, someday I might tell you more but I hope you've enjoyed this flashback with me.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! It definitely wasn't the best X-men fic I ever wrote but, eight years later, I thought it was good enough for a second look. I hope you enjoyed it despite its flaws. Thanks for reading.


End file.
